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McClure, Alexander Doak, 
1850-1920. 


"Another comforter" 


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“ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


ON THE HOLY SPIRIT. 


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Fleming H. Revell Company 


New York: 112 Fifth Ave. CuicaGo: 63 Washington St. 
TORONTO: 140 & 142 Yonge St. 


“ANOTHER COMFORTER: 


z 


A STUDY OF THE MISSION OF THE 
HOLY GHOST 


BY THE 


REV. A. D“ McCLURE 


PASTOR OF ST. ANDREW’S PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
WILMINGTON, N. C. 


New York CnHIcAGO ‘TorRONTO 


Fleming H. Revell Company 


Publishers of Evangelical Literature 


Copyright, 1897, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 


THE NEW YORK TYPE-SETTING COMPANY 


THE CAXTON PRESS 


* thow unto him that is able to 00 exrcecd= 
ing abundantly above all that we ask or 
think, according to the power tbat work= 
etb inus, unto him be glory inthe cburcb 
by Christ Jesus througbout all ages, 
world witbout end, Amen.” &® & & 


es Teens 
; 


ice at 


Lie 


a Fe ’ 
ee ae Reyes 


CHAPTER 


CONTENTS 


‘ PAGE 

INTRODUCTORY : - : 3 ° » tO 

His NAME ° : : ‘ S : 13 

. THE SPIRIT IS A PERSON ‘ : ‘ e208 

ork IS ELOLY: ; F : : : : 27 

. THE SPIRIT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT . oa $ | 

His COMING IN THE NEW TESTAMENT . 38 

. His MINISTRY TO THE DISCIPLES . ea 

His MIssIoN TO THE WORLD . : : 45 

THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH . ; : - . 54 
THE SPIRIT REVEALING CHRIST : : 4 itl 

SEEING THE UNSEEN SAVIOUR : : EOF 

. THE POWER OF THE HOLY GHOST . : 67 

. POWER TO WORK, TO SERVE > : AE Roies 

. PENTECOSTAL POWER . ‘ : : 75 

. SOURCE OF STRENGTH . A ; ; in Se 

. SEEMING STRENGTH . - : : : 85 

. STRENGTH : : ° ° . . pe Od 

THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT - : : 96 

. THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT . : - . 103 


. SEVERAL BENEFITS . ° ° ‘ ° 107 
. Tue LOVE OF THE SPIRIT  . . ‘ aks 
. GRIEVING THE SPIRIT : ’ > : 118 

CONCLUSION . . ; 3 ; ° cies 


7 


INTRODUCTORY 


IN my study, on my knees, after long, loving, 
and delightful meditation on His Word, com- 
fort of His presence, study of His power and 
manifold ministry, and assurance of His gut- 
dance, I begin this writing, in humble reliance 
on His personal and official work in me and by 
me, in the love of God and the grace of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, as a grateful recognition of 
His mighty power, and a fulfilled desire to com- 
mend to others the person, office, and ministry 
of Him whom Jesus called “‘ another Comforter.” 

My desire is to honor the Holy Ghost, and 
my prayer is that the power of the Holy Ghost, 
coming upon Christians, may make them wit- 
nesses unto Christ, to the glory of God the 
Father. 


When I was in Princeton Theological Semi- 
nary in 1875, Dr. William M. Taylor, of New 
9 


10 INTRODUCTORY 


York, preached to us students from Matthew 
ili, 11. That sermon was made of God a bless- 
ing to me, in a great spiritual struggle at the 
time, resulting in a rich personal experience, 
which has prevailed in all my subsequent life 
and ministry. I offer no exposition of that 
text here. Instead I would like to suggest a 
careful, prayerful reading of a once well-known 
book, lately reprinted, and always rich and 
stirring. That book is “The Tongue of Fire,” 
by the Rev. William Arthur, of England. 

After preaching in a church of my own faith 
and order in one of our cities a few years ago 
on the power of the Holy Ghost, an earnest 
member of the church thanked me and said that 
their pastor, who had then been with them seven 
years, had never preached on that subject to 
that people. This set me to noticing what in- 
definite ideas many ministers have of the per- 
son and office of the Spirit, and led me to review 
my own ministry with reference to the office 
work of the Holy Ghost. As a help to any who 
may wish to do the same, I would suggest a later 
and very helpful book by S. W. Pratt, entitled 
“The Gospel of the Holy Spirit.” 

About the time I was reading this book an 
aged Christian friend, since deceased, said to 
me that she had noticed that during the war 


INTRODUCTORY ake 


between the States there was less preaching on 
the work of the Holy Spirit than before the 
war, and that this had continued largely to the 
present. I have wondered whether this was 
due to the thought of leadership which made 
Christ more prominent as “a leader and com- 
mander to the people.” Possibly. But now 
that we have passed into times of peace, with 
no less honor to Christ as the Captain of our 
salvation, should we not return to and enlarge 
our views of Christ in all the fullness of His 
redemption and our completeness in Him, in 
the manifold ministry of the Holy Ghost? We 
may be dangerously near the sin against the 
Holy Ghost in failing to honor Him as in Christ 
and the revealer of Christ, and will in so far as 
we honor Him in His ministry avoid that sin. 
I would like in this connection to commend two 
of the last works of the late lamented Dr. A. J. 
Gordon, of Boston, Mass., on ‘‘ The Holy Spirit 
in Missions”’ and ‘The Ministry of the Holy 
Spirit.” I do hope these will be widely read, 
and that the older writings of Dr. John Owen 
and others on this subject will find an increasing 
number of students. 

With no claim to be exhaustive or complete 
in study or statement, I offer this effort to aid 
and encourage any who desire to honor the 


12 INTRODUCTORY 


Holy Ghost. While writing editorials for the 
“ North Carolina Presbyterian ” in 1892, ’93, and 
’94, I wrote several on the ministry of the Holy 
Ghost. These called forth such commendation 
from judicious friends as to move me to a care- 
ful restudy of the subject of this book and to 
write the following chapters, embodying much 
of what I wrote as editorials. This I now sub- 
mit to such interest and review as it may be 
entitled to receive or awaken. 


WILMINGTON, N. C. 


CHAPTER I 
HIS NAME 


OuR Lord Jesus Christ was about to leave 
His disciples. They were devoted to Him and 
dependent upon Him. Because of this, in tell- 
ing them that He must leave them, He speaks 
many comforting words, found in the thirteenth, 
fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth chapters of 
John, and adds the prayer found in the seven- 
teenth chapter. He assures them that He will 
send in His name, and to be to them in His 
place, “‘ another Comforter.” This was because, 
“having loved His own which were in the 
world, He loved them unto the end.” They 
would otherwise think themselves alone in the 
world. But they were not to be left alone, 
orphans, comfortless. Jesus says, “I will pray 
the Father, and He shall give you another 
Comforter.” The word of the original is “ Para- 


clete.” It is used by the apostle where our 
13 


14 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


version of 1 John ii. 1 is: “We have an Advo- 
cate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” 
“Paraclete”’ is simply a transliteration of the 
Greek word. The translation ‘ Advocate,” like 
the translation “Comforter,” is only an effort 
to give in its connection a meaning of the word 
which cannot be fully expressed in any single 
English word. 

Our Lord used it to designate the Holy 
Ghost, as the promise of the Father, to come 
in the place of Christ as friend and counselor 
of His disciples, and as successor of Christ to 
carry on the work of redemption in the present 
age. The translation “Comforter” is most 
fitting here as spoken to the disciples in view 
of their grief and helplessness after His depar- 
ture. The words, ‘I will not leave you com- 
fortless: I will come to you,” show the disciples 
as orphans by His departure, and His care for 
them in coming to them in the person of the 
Holy Spirit. Our Lord thus makes Himself 
one with the Holy Spirit and distinguishes 
Himself from Him in that mystery which we 
have in the Trinity. 

The fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth chap- 
ters of John’s gospel are mainly the record of 
the promises of this Comforter and of His office 
work in applying the work of Christ. By Him 


HIS NAME 15 


the disciples would do greater works than Jesus 
did while here to suffer and to die in His hu- 
miliation. 

The same Greek word is applied to Christ 
and to the Holy Spirit by the same inspired 
writer John in his gospel and his first epistle. 
The Spirit is promised as “ another Comforter,” 
to be what Christ was, and more, in the benefit 
of Christ’s work. This makes plainer the later 
words: “It is expedient for you that I go away: 
for if I go not away, the Comforter will not 
come.” The translation “ Advocate” may be 
better understood, and its use partly justified 
in the present relation of Christ’s work to that 
of the Holy Spirit, by a familiar arrangement in 
human law practice. Two lawyers form a co- 
partnership for the practice of their profession 
because they have different tastes and qualifi- 
cations. One is the office lawyer; the other 
pleads the cases before judge or jury. They 
work in harmony. One prepares the case and 
the pleadings; the other presents them. This 
dimly shadows the holier office of the Advocate 
who is within us and prepares the case of our 
infirmities, “‘making intercession for us,’’ and 
of the Advocate with the Father, who “ever 
liveth to make intercession for us.’ So also we 
read, “For through Him we both have access 


16 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


by one Spirit unto the Father.” There is no 
rivalry, no depreciation one of the other, but a 
holy, heavenly harmony of purpose and pleading 
for the saints. Jesus taught His disciples to 
pray. The Holy Spirit ‘“ maketh intercession 
for us.” He is the “Spirit of grace and sup- 
plication.”” Jude exhorts Christians to live, 
“ praying in the Holy Ghost.” It is clear that a 
just recognition of the person of the Holy Ghost 
and honoring Him will always exalt and honor 
Christ. The Holy Ghost is not a Comforter 
distinct from Christ, but after Christ, and His 
fellow—‘“ another Comforter.” 

This Advocate is the Holy Ghost. He is 
“the Spirit of truth.” He is not a new person 
coming into the plan of God from without, un- 
heralded or unexpected. He had place and 
part in the work of creation. He wrought in 
all the way of providence preparing for the 
coming of Christ. He prepared Christ’s body 
and was with Christ without measure for the 
work of redemption. About to report that 
finished work to the Father, Christ promised 
the coming of the Holy Ghost in His personal 
and permanent mission and ministry, to make 
the ministration of the Spirit rather glorious in 
the greater works of the disciples, in applying 
the perfect work of Christ in the world, He 


HIS NAME 17 


would work regeneration. On the merit of 
Christ’s work He would make holy. He would 
bestow gifts. He would distribute offices and 
separate to service. He would enrich with 
graces and produce fruit. He would minister 
power for service, so that the witnesses unto 
Christ would bear convincing testimony. He 
would so reveal and exalt Christ and minister 
His love that these witnesses would count it all 
joy to be found worthy to suffer for His sake, 
as seeing Him who is invisible. He would give 
purity and power, rest and victory. 

Herein is seen the meaning of the words of 
Christ, “It is expedient for you that I go 
away.” They teach that Jesus must go away, 
and include the teaching that He must go to 
the Father with a finished work, to present a 
perfect redemption. This would lay the foun- 
dation on which the Holy Ghost could build the 
superstructure of salvation. There was, there- 
fore, an expediency in the going of Christ, that 
the Holy Ghost might come in His place, 
‘another Comforter” to His disciples, and His 
vicegerent in the world. It further implied that 
Jesus must go away, that He might be spirit- 
ually revealed and truly known. If He had 
remained here in person, pilgrimages would have 
been needed by those far away seeking to see 


18 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


Jesus, and desiring some merely temporal good, 
or to pay outward homage. The heart is nat- 
urally too prone to this. If in a purpose to 
worship, such pilgrimages would take time and 
talents that would be better bent on daily duties, 
and lowly deeds to the poor in His name, or on 
taking the truth to the ends of the earth. For 
this the Holy Ghost, in the name of the absent 
Christ, would qualify the disciples, instead of 
the doubtful advantage of looking to Jesus for 
human counsel and guidance, and depending on 
His personal presence and provision for them. 
These words in the seventh chapter of John, 
“The Holy Ghost was not yet given; becausethat 
Jesus was not yet glorified,” cannot mean that 
until Pentecost the Holy Ghost was not work- 
ing in the world, any more than that Jesus was 
not in the world until He was born in Bethle- 
hem. The Holy Spirit had wrought in creation 
and wrought mightily in Old Testament times. 
He descended on Jesus at Jordan in His baptism. 
He was with Christ without measure. He led 
Him into the wilderness to be tempted. He 
quickened Him from His death in the flesh. 
Jesus had a definite mission in His first coming, 
beginning at Bethlehem and ending on the 
Mount of Olives.- So the Holy Ghost came on 
a definite mission in the fulfilled promise of the 


HIS NAME 19 


Father and prayer of the Son, beginning at 
Pentecost and continuing in a manifold ministry, 
“the ministration of the Spirit,” until He com- 
pletes the work of this dispensation, and every 
redeemed one is regenerated and renewed into 
the likeness of the Redeemer. It is not dis- 
honoring the Holy Ghost nor limiting His power 
to declare this, any more than dishonoring to 
Jesus to say that He did what He came to do 
and no more. It is dishonoring the Holy Ghost 
to say He came to do what manifestly He is 
not doing and has not promised to do. 

From His Father’s throne Jesus sent the Holy 
Ghost on the day of Pentecost upon the merit 
and ground of His finished work of atonement, 
and to apply it. He began to add believers by 
regeneration, and to take His abode in each one 
to work the work of sanctification, to enrich 
with spiritual graces, to produce “ the fruit of 
the Spirit,” and to bestow gifts. He bestows 
and ministers power for service. Those born 
from above, gathered out, added to Christ, con- 
stitute the church. Their life is expressed in 
faith, laying hold on Christ, uniting each to Him. 
These compose the mystical body of Christ and 
are called by His name. The Holy Ghost em- 
bodies Himself in this church. He quickens 
this body, part gathered to Christ, part here in 


20 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


the world. Christ, the Head over all things to 
the church, is at the right hand of God. From 
Him the church is supplied with offices and 
officers, and is thereby fitted and furnished for 
service “ till we all come in the unity of the faith, 
and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto 
a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature 
of the fullness of Christ.” 

This church as the body of Christ, embodying 
the Holy Ghost, has a sacred and solemn mis- 
sion. The church represents Christ on earth, 
as He represents the church in heaven. What- 
ever glory Christ shall have in the world must 
be by the church. Hence the words: ‘ Now 
unto Him that is able to do exceeding abun- 
dantly above all that we ask or think, according 
to the power that worketh in us, unto Him be 
glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout 
all ages, world without end. Amen.” This 
power is the power of the Holy Ghost, upon 
whose welcome presence and gracious ministry 
the church is dependent, to “ live in the Spirit,” 
“pray in the Spirit,’ be “led by the Spirit,” 
and “ walk in tile Spirit.” 


CHAPTER II 
THE SPIRIT IS A PERSON 


THIS is evident from what we have just seen. 
Jesus declares the mission of the Holy Ghost, 
the Spirit of truth, to come as “another Com- 
forter.”’ Jesus is speaking of His fellow coming 
after Him and like Him to qualify and enable 
His disciples to do greater works than He. He, 
absent, was to be revealed and made more truly 
Saviour, Redeemer, and Lord than if present. 
All this must be the doing of a person. It is 
declared to be the work of the Spirit. This 
could not be the result of an influence. It does 
not meet the case to attribute such results to 
an impersonal emanation. It cannot be the 
impression or effect of the Word merely as 
spiritual, though declared to be the living Word, 
quick and powerful. That Word is not in- 
herently mighty. It is the sword of the Spirit. 


This Spirit is another person, distinct as Christ 
21 


22 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


and distinguished by Christ. He was to come 
in the name of Christ. He is doing in the plan 
of redemption what Christ did not come to do. 
Christ came to make atonement for sin in offer- 
ing Himself a sacrifice for sin. The Holy Ghost 
came to make this work of Christ effectual in 
the regeneration, comfort, sanctification, and ser- 
vice of those for whom Christ came to die. 
This is further evident in the fact that the 
Spirit “speaks expressly,” is spoken of and 
spoken to, as a person. This is not first done 
by Christians of a later age, or in apostolic 
times, or even by the apostles, but by Christ 
Himself. In His parting instruction and words 
of comfort Christ speaks, not of z¢, but of Am. 
A further proof is that the gifts of the Spirit, 
spoken of in the twelfth chapter of First Corin- 
thians, are bestowed by a person and are not the 
effects of an influence. In the eleventh verse it is 
seen that this Spirit both works and distinguishes 
as a person. In the seventh verse it appears 
that these gifts are bestowed with a purpose and 
therefore impose a grave responsibility. Other 
proofs, familiar to the students of the writings 
of John Owen and the many subsequent writers 
on this subject, need not be repeated here. One 
suggestion, repeated often, should not be over- 
looked here. It is this: We hesitate to receive 


THE SPIRIT IS A PERSON 23 


this truth, and indeed are not apt or able to 
appreciate it, because the Spirit hides Himself 
to exalt Christ. His personality is lost sight 
of in the revelation of Christ. In making this 
revelation, the Spirit is the guest of the heart 
so quietly and the teacher of the understanding 
so tenderly and graciously as to make the be- 
liever unmindful of Him in the joy of the Lord. 

In fulfilling His mission personal acts are 
ascribed to the Spirit and done by Him. He 
“teaches,” “ comforts,” “ reproves,”’ “ guides,” 
and “sanctifies.” He “ guides into all truth.” 
He reproduces to the mind, quickens the mem- 
ory to recollect, all that Jesus said and did; He 
brings to remembrance, for living or recording, 
all that Jesus said or did, precisely as needed. 
He also testifies of Christ, by way of inspira- 
tion, revelation, or explication, what would be 
otherwise unthought, unwritten, or unsaid. 

We are therefore safe from the delusive resort 
to an abstract principle or power by the de- 
lightful, restful refuge in a concrete personal 
Comforter. Every believer who has tried the 
experiment of fleeing to “the communion of 
the Holy Ghost” can testify that this statement 
is true. This is not a mere sensation in the 
physical frame, however pleasing or pathetic; 
nor a sentiment of the emotional faculty; but 


24 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


an anointing with the eye-salve of spiritual 
seeing, by which the power of vision is cleansed 
and the view is clear of the distinct revelation 
of Jesus as Lord. Christ appears, “ the bright- 
ness of the Father’s glory,” so exalted as to 
make believers humble, docile, and obedient. 
Such are not to wait for an influence, nor to be 
led by some impression, but to be taught by the 
person, the Holy Ghost, and to expect His power 
coming upon them to control, guide, and use 
them. 

_The personality of the Spirit appears in the 
fourth chapter of First Timothy. There Heissaid 
to speak. The power of speech and the act of 
speaking are proper of a person. In both these 
the Spirit is foretelling the future. Thus He 
speaks in the present, knowing the future. He 
is not here instructed by the Father or prompted 
by the Son. He is not seeking to make an 
impression or to exert an influence, but thinking 
and speaking, and that in separate and distinct 
personality. This means more. It shows the 
purpose of His coming to testify of Christ, and 
is also an evidence of His divinity. 

The personal pronouns are used by Christ in 
promising the coming of the Spirit and in fore- 
telling His work. He avoids the use of the 
neuter pronouns, warning against the too com- 


PibewhtRlled SAP LiOOW 25 


mon, careless irreverence of some in speaking of 
the Spirit as z7. All are taught by Christ’s ex- 
ample to honor zm. This ought to silence all 
the claims that God the Father or God the Son 
is promised to come when Christ teaches that 
“another Comforter ”’ 
and the Father are, and whose very coming is an 
act of separate, distinct personality. 

At the baptism of Jesus the three persons of 
the Trinity appear and are distinguished. In 
the formula of Christian baptism we are taught 
to call each by name. In the great commission 
they are distinctively referred to. In the apos- 
tolic benediction their several and separate 
persons, offices, and ministry are signally re- 
vealed. This doctrine of the Trinity is a great 
mystery. It is, however, clearly taught, and 
the relation of each person to the plan of sal- 
vation, that it might be devised, wrought, and 
applied, is clearly revealed. It is a doctrine of 
the Bible. It stands or falls with the Bible. It 
is an essential part of the revelation of the being 
and nature of God. It is the only sufficient 
revelation of God. It gives the highest con- 
ception of His being. We dare not reject its 
claims because it contains mysteries. This 
ought rather to commend these claims. In the 
Godhead there are “‘ three persons, the same in 


would come, one as He 


26 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


substance, equal in power and glory.’ There 
must be unfathomable depths, unattainable 
heights, inmeasurable lengths, and unsearchable 
breadths here. In these the Holy Ghost, a 
person, coequal, coeternal, is one, as the Father 
and the Son. 


CHAPTER IIT 
HE IS HOLY 


HE is the Holy Spirit. ‘Holiness is His nature 
—the eternal perfection of His being. He can- 
not be anything but holy. He cannot be in 
harmony with anything in the universe that is 
not holy. Holiness is His life. Every expres- 
sion of that life must be in order to holiness. 
In the works of creation and providence, of reve- 
lation and redemption, of regeneration, sancti- 
fication, and support, of control, guidance, and 
instruction, whether in the law or in the gospel, 
He is holy. 

His office, whether in creation, or the entire 
contents, conduct, and application of revelation, 
culminating and crowned in the redemption that 
is in Christ Jesus, is to manifest and preserve 
the divine holiness. So is ‘‘ the ministration of 
the Spirit” in the divine government. In all 


things He reveals to magnify and glorify the 
27 


28 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


Godhead as supremely holy. The heavenly 
Father is holy. The eternal Son is holy. He 
is the Holy Spirit. The love and the law, the 
name and the Word of God, are holy. Where | 
God met and manifested Himself to Moses was 
holy ground. The holy placein the tabernacle and 
the temple was for the priests. The high priest 
went into the most holy place. They in heaven, 
God's dwelling-place, “rest not day and night, 
saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, 
which was, and is, and is to come.” The apostle 
writes in Romans that the Son of God must be 
justified in His holy obedience and sacrifice to 
perfect the holiness of all who are redeemed by 
Him. To this end, as well as in the fellowship 
of the Father and the Son, the holy Son had 
the Holy Spirit without measure. 

The Holy Spirit has no subordinate rank in 
the Godhead, and is doing no work inferior to 
that of the Father and the Son. Man cannot 
know how holy God is, or, indeed, what holiness 
is; he has no desire after holiness, and cannot 
become holy in character and life, except of 
the office work of the Holy Spirit. He works 
as the revealer, teacher, and promoter of holi- 
ness, and to remove unholiness from the pres- 
ence of God. To this end He separated a family 
and a nation by isolation and nurture. He re- 


HEALS SG {OF ES 29 


quired the places, plans, persons, order, and 
ordinances of worship to be holy unto the Lord. 
These were to prepare for and present to the 
world the most holy Son, by whose holy propi- 
tiation salvation is provided unto holiness. To 
bring to Him, the holy law was given, and con- 
tinues to be the Spirit’s standard and rule of 
holy living. Man’s failure as a sinner to reach 
the holiness of this standard is but a proof of 
his need of the sanctifying grace of the Holy 
Spirit applying the perfect holiness of Christ. 
The holiness of the Spirit is manifest in His 
personal, spotless purity and unalloyed, essen- 
tial perfection. It appears in the demands of 
the holy law and the threatening of its fearful 
penalty. It is shown in the holy mercy and 
grace of God in Christ, and the justification 
“only for His righteousness imputed.” It is 
ministered in holy birth of regeneration, in holy 
patience and power unto sanctification, in holy 
grace for strength and service, in holy gifts of 
usefulness and devotion. Yet all these com- 
bined, to our poor comprehension and in our 
poorer expression, cannot give adequate idea of 
the Spirit’s holiness. ‘The Spirit of God is 
holy in His being, nature, and character; in all 
His attributes and perfections, word and works; 
holy in thought, feeling, will, love, and judg- 


30 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


ment; holy in person, manifestation, and com- 
panionship.”’ 

It is indeed surprising that preachers and 
people, so many, do not seem to know that the 
Spirit is a person, and do not adore the holy 
nature and seek the office work of the Spirit as 
holy. Some ask for z¢s zxfluence without seem- 
ing to seek Hs power unto holiness of life, 
strength, and service. 

This truth is of practical importance. “ With- 
out holiness no man shall see the Lord.” This 
is wrought by the Holy Spirit. Holiness, on our 
part, as required and attainable here in this life, 
is the relative holiness of complete consecration, 
separation to the Lord. It consists with growth 
of sanctification daily wrought in us by the Holy 
Spirit. This comes from God in transforming 
into the likeness of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ. This shall issue in the full fruition of 
likeness to Christ, when we shall see Him as He 
is. This relative, progressive, and perfected holi- 
ness is the work of the Holy Spirit. 


CHALLE RLV, 


we 


THE SPIRIT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 


THE Holy Ghost, the third person in the 
Trinity, the vicegerent of Jesus Christ and ex- 
ecutive of the Godhead in this dispensation, 
does not at Pentecost come anew or first into 
human history. He came on a mission to apply 
the perfect work of atonement wrought by Jesus 
Christ. But He was in the Old Testament in 
the beginning until Christ came. The prophecy 
of Joel that He would be poured out upon all 
flesh is to be understood with this explanation. 
This prophecy serves a double purpose in con- 
sidering the presence of the Spirit in the Old 
Testament. It identifies the Spirit as the Holy 
Ghost. This declares that He is a person. He 
is variously designated in the Old Testament 
as “the Spirit,” “the Spirit of God,” and “ the 
Spirit of the Lord.” This might be pleaded to 
prove that He is only “it,” as an influence or 

31 


32 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


an emanation from God. But Peter at Pente- 
cost declares that the fulfilment of the prophecy 
beginning then was also the promise of the 
Father, which Jesus had said was the sending 
of a person. ‘‘ The breath of the Lord”? is an- 
other name of the Holy Ghost. 

The personality of the Spirit is rather taken 
for granted than asserted in the Old Testament. 
This appears in the revelation of the Trinity in 
the first verses of Genesis. The first verses of 
John’s gospel run a parallel. ‘‘ God said”’ of 
Genesis is “the Word ”’ of John. 


‘* His fiat laid the corner-stone 
And hewed the pillars one by one.” 


God is the Father Almighty and is the God and 
Father of our Lord. The work of the Spirit is 
more distinctly and definitely stated. It is, in 
epitome, the same as unfolded in subsequent 
Scriptures and centuries. ‘The Spirit of God 
moved [kept brooding] upon the face of the 
waters.” This means, He quickened, He nour- 
ished, He cultivated, He brought forth in being. 
He brought order out of confusion. He hovered 
over like a brood-mother, as the figure is. He 
directed and controlled. What was decreed 
and done in creation was by Him carried for- 
ward in life, might, and order. As we rape 


THE SPIRIT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 33 


the oak from its germ in the acorn, we may trace 
from this germinal beginning the unfolding of the 
work of the Holy Ghost in subsequent Scriptures. 
In kind or in part this verse reappears in the 
manifold ministry of the Holy Ghost. 

When Pharaoh would appoint Joseph over all 
the affairs of Egypt, he asked, ‘“‘ Can we find 
such a one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit 
of God is?”’ There was a similar claim for Dan- 
iel by the queen-mother to Nebuchadnezzar. 
These men were sought for their wisdom and 
fitness to rule and direct in civil government. 
Those who chose them were not God’s children, 
but their words show, and the Scriptures accept 
them as showing, that both these men were 
qualified for the high trusts committed to them. 
They were this by the Spirit of God. Their 
words were wise and weighty in counsels. Their 
discernment was clear in the management of 
sreat matters of state, and their decisions were 
prompt and prudent for the execution of civil 
enactments. The principles proposed and the 
laws enacted by Joseph are in evidence to this 
day and lie at the foundation of Egypt’s code. 
The power of Daniel, holding through three 
dynasties, entitles him to that Scripture rank as 
one of the three great men, “‘ Noah, Daniel, and 
Job.” 


34 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


For the construction of the tabernacle in the 
wilderness the master workmen were fitted for 
their responsibilities of oversight, direction, and 
skilled labor, and the inference is just that men 
and women were made skilful and successful in 
their parts of the workmanship. This sagacity 
and strength and skill in selection of material 
and fitting into proper place with handicraft of 
hammer and chisel, with loom and needle, with 
flaying-knife and tanning-vat, from finest fabric 
to roughest material, were all ministered by the 
Spirit of God. 

The times of the judges furnish many and 
striking examples of those who were mighty 
by the Spirit of the Lord coming upon them. 
Gideon, found timid and shrinking, later is found 
with only pitchers and lamps and the cry, “ The 
sword of the Lord, and of Gideon!’’ He was 
a great deliverer, because the Spirit came upon 
him. By the same Spirit Jephthah was com- 
mander and conqueror. This gives no sanction 
or support to the charge, brought to the writer 
by an able lawyer, once Attorney-General of 
the United States, that the Bible sanctions im- 
morality. He meant inhumanity in the execu- 
tion of the rash vow of Jephthah. This lawyer, 
like others, failed to see that the Spirit of God 
came in Old Testament times upon men to fit 


SHE DIIRIEIN LHe OLD LTESLAM EN I-30 


them for specific service as the agents of God 
for His people’s protection or deliverance, al- 
together apart from the work of regeneration 
and guidance in other things. The Spirit of 
God made Jephthah mighty in battle, but left 
him to himself in making and executing a rash 
vow. 

Saul is another example in this kind. As 
Samuel told him, so it came to pass. He was 
found among the prophets. The Holy Spirit 
came upon him and gave him “ another spirit.” 
This was not a new nature. ‘The reference is 
not to a moral quality or a spiritual essence. It 
was the effects of the Spirit’s working upon the 
natural mind of Saul. He had been living in 
seclusion. He had just now been anointed to 
be king, and this coming of the Spirit stirred 
his ambition, aroused the latent energy of a 
hitherto quiet life. This grew to vaulting am- 
bition, to cruel jealousy and hate, and ended in 
moral madness. Saul prophesied, not as a child 
of God born from above, but, as the Holy Spirit 
used him, unregenerate. 

The case of Samson is more familiar, but not 
less discriminatingly stated than that of Saul. 
Every child of Christian training will tell us, in 
answer to one of thosesimple and important ques- 
tions asked and answered at the mother’s knee, 


36 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


that Samson was the strongest man. If asked 
wherein that great physical strength lay, the an- 
swer would be, “In his hair.” This is correct so 
far as the meaning of the unshorn hair was the 
sign of the vow of the Nazarite taken for him be- 
fore his birth. But that was only an outward sign 
that the vow was kept by him in the letter. The 
source of his strength was the Spirit of the Lord, 
who came upon him while he kept the vow. 
When he suffered the hair to be shorn the Spirit 
of God did not come upon him, and he found he 
was weak as other men. He was then and at 
other times morally degraded and spiritually 
weak. 

These several cases give us examples of the 
power of the Holy Ghost. He came upon 
some to give physical strength. To others 
He gave skill in manual labor and wisdom in 
planning and executing. Others were made 
wise leaders and legislators in the affairs of civil 
government, and yet others were made great 
generals in war. All this for the service of God 
was often apart from the work of regeneration 
and the presence of personal piety, and is so dis- 
tinctly stated as to leave no room for the charge 
that the Holy Bible sanctions any unholy prin- 
ciples or practices. 

Expressions in the psalms, and phrases of the 


THE SPIRIT IN THE: OLD TESTAMENT > 37 


prophets, and examples in the historical books, 
read in the light of the New Testament, show 
the work of the Spirit recorded in the Old Tes- 
tament, of quickening, sustaining, and nourish- 
ing spiritual life. The familiar prayer, “ Create 
in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right 
spirit within me,” will occur to many. By put- 
ting these beside the other instances it will be 
seen clearly that all power, and all kinds and 
all degrees of power, are manifested and minis- 
tered by the Spirit of God in the Old Testament. 
This ministry may be compared to the appear- 
ance of the angel of the covenant only occasion 
ally and incidentally in the unfolding purpose 
and unfailing promises of God. The orm was 
in physical agencies and visible results and 
outward consistency. The inward spiritual 
harmony was not so distinctly revealed, though 
present and underlying all outward moralities. 
Whether understood or not, all these were the 
means, methods, or might of the Spirit of God. 


CHAP TE Re ny: 
HIS COMING IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 


HE was in the world, having part in the work 
of creation and in the history of redemption 
before the coming of Christ to make atonement 
for sin. All His work was for the glory of God 
and for the good of His people. He was in 
Christ and with Christ: ‘‘ Jesus was led by the 
Spirit.” “ Being put to death in the flesh,” He 
“was quickened by the Spirit.” As Jesus said, 
“Ye must be born again,” explaining His words 
as meaning “‘ born of water and of the Spirit,” 
it is plain that every child of God under the old 
dispensation was regenerated by the Holy Spirit. 
As He was thus in the old dispensation, in what 
sense was He to come according to the promises 
of the Father and the Son? 

John xvi. 7 shows that He was to come in the 
place of Christ as “another Advocate.” God 


the Father was personally prominent in promis- 
38 


HIS COMING IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 39 


ing and providing the Christ and in preparing 
the way for His coming. Christ the Son is 
personally prominent in offering Himself the 
one sacrifice for sin, making a completed work 
of redemption and revealing the love of God. 
The Holy Ghost is come, and is personally 
prominent in applying the atonement, in making 
the work of redemption effectual, and in shed- 
ding abroad the love of God in the hearts of 
the children of God. 

“He dwelleth with you” (John xiv. 17). 
Whatever reference this may have to the pres- 
ence of the Spirit in occasional power and as 
the sanctifier of saints, it must mean that He 
was dwelling with them in Christ and working 
not in His separate personal office. The next 
clause, ‘‘and shall be in you,” suggests that 
distinct office of dwelling in believers for Christ, 
and, as in Christ and in the fullness of the bless- 
ing of redemption, enabling the disciples to do 
greater things. As God the Father in love had 
provided and God the Son had wrought re- 
demption, God the Holy Ghost came to apply 
this redemption. It was not the first coming, 
not coming in a subordinate relation, but the 
coming in that distinct and peculiar power of a 
manifold ministry distinguished from that of the 
Father and the Son. All three persons of the 


40 “ANOTHER COMFORTER* 


Trinity have been always working. In the be- 
ginning they took counsel to create the heaven 
and the earth, and man in the image of God. 
In the performance of their eternal purpose to 
redeem and save man each person has a part, 
and they work together. The Comforter, which 
is the Holy Ghost, is come in His personal work. 
While God the Father has received the incarnate 
Son to His throne as God-man, Mediator, and 
they in plan and power are directing, control- 
ling, and governing all things for the church, 
the Holy Ghost is working here as “another 
Advocate.” The Trinity is one God. The work 
of one is the work of each and of all. In an 
effort to make an intellectual distinction and to 
form a mental concept of each and of their sev- 
eral work, we are tempted to worship three 
Gods and to think of their separate work as 
independent of one another. Essentially what 
each does the one does. In prayer to each we 
address all as one, distinguishing only the limi- 
tation, which they mutually arrange, and the 
work which the one does by each person and in 
the sphere of each. 

In the prayer which our Lord taught His dis- 
ciples, “ Father”’ is, as “ Lord,” a name and title of 
God, the one God over all, blessed forever. That 
is the correct mental concept, but it is far better 


HIS COMING IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 41 


to get our distinctions on our knees, devoutly 
waiting to be taught, than to make definitions 
in our studies. One God, the Father Almighty, 
in Jesus Christ His Son, redeemed, and, as the 
Holy Ghost, applies the redemption. 


CHAPTER VI 
HIS MINISTRY TO THE DISCIPLES 


THE Holy Ghost is come to abide with the 
disciples forever. By this they would have, 
whom the world could not receive, the Spirit of 
truth in them, and of Him Christ was to come 
to them. They would know the unity of the 
Father and His Son Jesus Christ, and their vital 
union with Christ by the Spirit. He would 
enable the disciples to keep the commandments 
of Christ as proof and power of the love of God 
shed abroad in their hearts. As thus vitally 
united to Christ in the Father, the Holy Ghost 
would be their Teacher, not now as an influence, 
but as a person teaching all things. There were 
things true which they could not receive until 
Christ had gone to the Father. The Spirit 
would teach all they ought to learn. All Christ 
had taught would be brought to remembrance. 


Thus the Holy Ghost would comfort the dis- 
42 


HIS MINISTRY TO THE DISCIPLES 43 


ciples by bringing Christ to them, by making 
them know their union with Him, by enabling 
them to keep His commandments, by bringing 
to remembrance what Christ had taught and 
carrying forward the teaching Christ had given. 
With this instruction and the appointment of 
the disciples as witnesses the fifteenth chapter 
of John closes. This, in connection with the 
study of Acts i. 8, we will refer to again. An- 
other study of the graces and fruits of the Spirit 
will refer to the teaching of the parable of the 
vine and the branches. 

The Holy Ghost is carrying on the work of 
regeneration, sanctification, and strength for 
service. He is the Spirit of adoption, helping 
infirmities and enabling God’s children to say 
“ Abba, Father.” He is the earnest of the 
inheritance until receiving the purchased pos- 
session. Believers are sealed by Him until the 
day of redemption. He is working graces and 
bestowing gifts. The fruit of love in its varieties 
of joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, good- 
ness, faith, meekness, temperance, and in all its 
loveliness of Christian graces, is produced in 
His work of sanctification. The gifts are be- 
stowments for service. In the work of regen- 
eration He must impart life. In the work of 
sanctification He must dwell in the heart, mak- 


44 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


ing the body His temple. In His ministry of 
power for service He may endue with perma- 
nent gifts, or come, as occasion may require, with 
specific and temporary qualifications of His in- 
finite power. 

On the day of Pentecost He came to be with 
the disciples, “another Comforter,” to make 
effectual the perfect work of Christ. After Pente- 
cost He came in answer to prayer, as at Pente- 
cost. Inthe Old Testament there are instances 
of His power upon some not the children of 
God. In the New Testament we have a limita- 
tion of power to the regenerate in bearing wit- 
ness to Christ. 


CHAPRTEREV IL 
HIS MISSION TO THE WORLD 


REGENERATION, being born from above, by 
which those who are by nature “ dead in tres- 
passes and sins’ are quickened into newness 
of life, is the work of the Holy Ghost. It is 
claimed by some that the word Jesus spoke to 
Nicodemus does not mean born, but begotten. 
This they use to teach conditional immortality. 
This is disproved in Matthew ii. 1, as any candid 
student of the original must see. The work of 
the Spirit is not embryonic, but brings forth. 
By this ministry of the Spirit a sinner is born 
out of his estate of sin and misery into an estate 
of salvation, out of nature’s death into eternal 
life. 

The common expianation that the teaching 
in John xvi. 8-11 describes the ordinary opera- 
tions of the Spirit in saving God’s people is so 
far true, but it does not exhaust the meaning. 

45. 


46 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


The Spirit does convince sinners of sin, and that 
they must be saved by the righteousness of 
Christ, and thus from a judgment. But the 
contrast is between the world and the church. 
Besides, the meaning of the word is not to con- 
vince in the sense of persuading to be true and 
constraining to confess, but rather that of con- 
victing or reproving the world as guilty and 
condemned in these items of the indictment. 
The Holy Ghost came as Advocate after Christ. 
His special work to the world is to silence the 
worldly as enemies of Christ. They might 
refuse to accept Christ as their Saviour and to 
bow to Him as Lord. They would still be 
convicted (reproved) of sin in three specifications 
and for three reasons assigned. They would 
be compelled to think of Christ and His cause 
as they were not thinking while He was speak- 
ing and when He was dying, dead, and buried. 
The Holy Ghost would prove that Christ was 
what He claimed to be, and that they were 
guilty in not accepting Him in His claim, and 
would reprove them for refusing the righteous- 
ness of Christ which He had gone to present to 
the Father for His people, in whose imputed 
righteousness the world would be reproved. 
For this also the world would be convicted of 
judgment, and the sentence passed upon the 


HIS MISSION TO THE WORLD 47 


prince of this world in the death and resurrec- 
tion of Christ, and in the mighty signs and 
wonders wrought by the disciples in the power 
of the Holy Ghost, would be the evidence. 
Within a few centuries after Pentecost there 
was a great change in the state of the world 
with reference to sin, righteousness, and the 
judgment. We might almost say its opinion 
on these was completely transformed within a 
few decades; and so great was the change that 
in a few centuries it was considered conversion, 
very much as the intellectual belief that Jesus 
is the Son of God is by some now held to be 
sufficient evidence of the new birth. This 
change is apparent in the Acts. In the earlier 
part of the book appears a peculiar restraining 
and irresistible power of the Holy Ghost accom- 
panying the testimony of the apostles and early 
witnesses for the resurrection, such that the un- 
believing Jews, in spite of their great number 
and bitter prejudice, were unable to withstand 
it. Among the Gentiles this was mistaken for 
some magician’s power and was eagerly sought. 
Both Jews and Gentiles were forced to respect 
the followers of Jesus of Nazareth. The heathen 
acknowledged Christianity as a great fact even 
when refusing to believe to the saving of their 
souls, The careful commentator Scott writes: 


48 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


“Tt is worthy of notice that an immense pro- 
portion of the human race, since the pouring 
out of the Holy Spirit after our Lord’s ascension, 
have been led to form such sentiments about 
sin, righteousness, and future judgment as the 
world up to that time had not the most remote 
conception of.’’ A separate study of the ninth, 
tenth, and eleventh verses will show this. The 
ninth suggests that the Holy Ghost will oblige 
the enemies of Christ to see that in not believ- 
ing Him they made a great mistake, and that 
they committed a serious sin in rejecting Him 
in whom they ought to have believed. The 
tenth teaches that after Christ had gone to the 
Father the Holy Ghost would convict His 
enemies of rejecting and killing the Holy One 
and the Just; this because He had gone to the 
Father. The eleventh verse shows that the 
Holy Ghost will convict and reprove the world 
respecting the judgment by casting out Satan, 
in emptying heathen temples of worshipers, de- 
stroying the power of idolatry, and delivering 
vast portions of the world from superstition and 
the bondage ot'a sacrificial and ceremonial sys- 
tem by the spiritual worship of God through 
the one sacrifice of Christ. 

The Father and the Son send the Spirit to 
the church in order to bring conviction to the 


HIS MISSION TO THE WORLD — 49 


world. He convinces, first, concerning Christ 
who was crucified; secondly, concerning Christ 
who has been accepted as a substitute for the 
redeemed; and thirdly, concerning Christ who 
is to come again and to judge the world. 

1. “He will convince the world of stn.’ There 
was conviction of sin before Christ came. The 
heathen have the voice of conscience bearing 
witness to the law, “ their thoughts the mean- 
while accusing or else excusing one another.”’ 
Conscience accuses and convinces of lying and 
stealing and murder as hurtful and hateful; but 
the Holy Ghost bears witness and convinces of 
the sin of not believing in Jesus Christ as a 
substitute for the sinner and a sacrifice for his 
sin. From the first sin of Adam, there was sin, 
original sin, actual transgression, and the want 
of conformity to the law of God in life and char- 
acter, with omission of daily duty, obedience, 
and love. There were types and ceremonies 
foreshadowing and promising a Redeemer and 
pointing to Him; but now henceforth the Holy 
Ghost reveals Him, exalts Him, and bears wit- 
ness to Him as being already come, in fulfilment 
of all promises, prophecies, ceremonies, and 
types, through obedience, sufferings, and death 
the Saviour; and this Spirit convinces the 
world of the sin of rejecting Christ as the only 


50 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


Mediator and Saviour. Peter preached at 
Pentecost this Jesus Christ who had fulfilled 
all righteousness, obeyed the requirements and 
suffered the penalty of the broken law; and as 
he preached the Holy Ghost wrought, and mul- 
titudes cried, ‘‘ What shall we do?” Paul 
preached “the faith of Christ,” ‘ determined 
not to know anything, save Jesus Christ, and 
Him crucified,” and sinners were saved through 
conviction of sin. The hearers at Pentecost 
were convinced that they had crucified both by 
guilt and by act. We are convicted that we do 
not believe in Him crucified and are guilty. 
The sin is the same—the sin of unbelief in Christ. 

2. “Of righteousness, because I go to My 
Father, and ye see Me no more.” When the 
high priest entered within the holy of holies 
the people were anxious to know whether he 
was accepted. This could be known only by 
his return and blessing the people. Our great 
High Priest ascended to the right hand of God, 
into the most holy place, and the world could 
be convinced that His righteousness was ac- 
cepted by His return to bless in the person of 
the Holy Ghost, whom He had promised. This 
is God’s way of showing that the righteousness 
of Christ is accepted. This is the ground of 
the acceptance of the saints. God the Holy 


HIS MISSION TO THE WORLD 51 


Ghost quickened Christ from the death of the 
cross. There He had been despised and re- 
jected, making atonement. Now He is accepted 
of the Father in that atonement. Peter at 
Pentecost said: “Therefore being by the right 
hand of God exalted, He hath shed forth this, 
which ye now see and hear.” Jesus had said 
He would do this, and the doing confirmed His 
words. He is by this declared righteous as 
seated on His Father’s throne. The Holy Ghost 
is come to show that and to convince of that 
righteousness. 

3. “ Of judgment, because the prince of this 
world ts judged.’ Judgment here is not 
only sentence of condemnation, but the decree 
and assurance that Satan is cast out. ‘Now 
is the judgment of this world: now shall the 
prince of this world be cast out.” Satan 
tempted our first parents to ruin us and all 
our race. Thenceforth he is the prince of this 
world. The death of Christ made atonement 
and wrought redemption. This redemption is 
complete in casting out Satan. This began 
in the descent of the Holy Ghost, upon the 
acceptance of the atonement of Christ. He is 
here in evidence and bearing witness that 
this condemnation of Satan is complete and 
the decree entered to cast him out. Christ 


52 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


came that “through death He might destroy 
him that had the power of death, that is, the 
devil.” 

The conviction here meant is not that else- 
where taught, of the judgment to come, and its 
terrors for unbelievers, and the security in Christ 
for those who shall not come into judgment, 
but the judgment of Satan to cast him out of 
this world. 

The three links here are the atonement for 
sin wrought by the Redeemer, the acceptance 
of the pérson and work of the Redeemer, and 
the decree that by these Satan is judged and 
through these is being cast out. The Holy 
Ghost witnesseth and convinceth the world that 
Jesus has made atonement for sin and that un- 
belief in Him is the damning sin; that the 
righteousness of Christ is accepted and His 
blessing as our High Priest is the gift of the 
Holy Ghost ; and that the perfect work of Christ 
will cast out the prince of this world, who is 
judged. 

This general operation of the Spirit carries 
the specific work of awakening sinners to a 
sense of their sin; of convincing them of guilt 
and exposure to the wrath of God; of produc- 
ing repentance, faith, and new obedience in the 
regeneration which He effects. As truly as 


HIS MISSION TO THE WORLD 53 


the natural birth is the entrance upon the natu- 
ral life, so necessarily must the soul be born 
from above, and this is the work of the Holy 
Spirit in bringing every saved soul from death 
to life. 


CHAPTER VIII 
THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH 


THIS is a descriptive name Jesus gives of the 
Holy Ghost when telling His disciples there 
were many things they could not then receive 
while He was with them; but the Holy Ghost 
would teach them. He would guide them into 
all truth. All truth, all kinds of truth on all 
subjects, He would teach. He is the Teacher 
of truth in all departments of human learning, 
in all classes of pure knowledge, in all particu- 
lars and degrees of true wisdom. My Christian 
friend as a member of Congress was right in 
seeking instruction and guidance of this Teacher 
for every utterance and vote in the halls of 
legislation and in, every business matter, as well 
as and as conscientiously as in attending the 
service of the sanctuary and engaging in worship 
or teaching a class in the study of the Scrip- 


tures. The logical faculty must be made and 
54. 


THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH 55 


kept right. The reasoning must be made dis- 
criminating and faultless. The facts must be 
secured, separated, and established. The in- 
tellect must be guided in all these to secure 
correct conclusions, even in secular concerns. 
Many fail to see this and to seek this guidance. 
Nevertheless it is the privilege of every Chris- 
tian and should be the possession of all. We 
may modify this general statement as to its 
source and its subject. The source is the 
counsels of the Trinity. Not what the Spirit 
might think of Himself, but what He hears in 
the heavenlies, He has as a message and came 
to speak. This includes prophecy. Jesus said, 
“He will show you things to come.” He had 
inspired and guided the prophets of the Old 
Testament; He would so use prophets of the 
New Testament. Herein is a call to study 
prophecy and a rebuke to any who refuse to 
receive its messages. It is a call to consider 
things to come. These, as parts of all truth, 
are concerning Christ. The Holy Spirit testi- 
fies of Jesus. All truth isin Him. “The tes- 
timony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” “ It 
pleased the Father that in Him should all full- 
ness dwell.” The Spirit makes His glories 
known. He came to take of the things of 
Jesus and show them to His disciples, thus to 


56 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


reveal, exalt, and glorify Christ. All revelation 
is given by Him in its original parts and places 
and in its relations of truth and righteousness. 
He gives the reception and understanding of 
truth and is the minister of the liberty wherein 
the truth makes free. There is, therefore, per- 
fect harmony and proportion of all parts of His 
teaching, and He will show this to all who will 
receive it in the obedience of Jesus Christ. This 
harmony is in Christ. 


CHAPTER IX 
THE SPIRIT REVEALING CHRIST 


STUDY John xvi. 16. The verse preceding 
gives a summary of the context: “ All things 
that the Father hath are Mine: therefore said 
I, that He shall take of Mine, and shall show it 
unto you.” What is the connection between 
that and this: “ A little while, and ye shall not 
see Me: and again, a little while, and ye shall 
see Me, because I go to the Father’? This is 
supposed to refer to Christ’s death and resur- 
rection, making it mean that in a few hours the 
disciples would not see Him, because He would 
be dead and buried, and in a few hours more 
they would see Him again, because He would 
come forth from the dead. What, then, be- 
comes of the added words, “‘ because I go to 
the Father”? Help to understand this arises 
from further notice that two words are used in 


the original for seeing. In the first part, “A 
57 


58 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


little while, and ye shall not see Me,” the word 
is the one used in Luke xxiii. 48, describing the 
multitude at the crucifixion beholding with their 
bodily eyes. The word in the second part is 
the same as in Matthew v. 8, “ Blessed are the 
pure in heart: for they shall see God.” This 
is spiritual seeing, and makes the meaning vastly 
more and richer than the disappearance and 
return of Christ in death and resurrection. Be- 
cause He ascended to the Father and we see 
Him no more here with the bodily eyes in this 
dispensation, the Comforter is come to reveal 
Him to the spiritual eyes as they see God. 
There is a twofold work of the Holy Spirit 
here—in revealing Christ, and in making Chris- 
tians pure in heart that they may see Christ. 
This distinction is important and far-reaching 
in its application. It was expedient that Christ 
should go away, that this work of the Spirit in 
revealing Christ might be done. This will ap- 
pear in comparing the state of mind and heart 
of Peter and the other apostles at any time 
beforehand, and especially at the trial and cruci- 
fixion of Christ} with the clearness of under- 
standing, firmness of conviction, fullness of 
persuasion, and devotion of heart on the day of 
Pentecost, and the endurance, courage, and 
success of their ministry afterward. The record 


THE SPIRIT REVEALING CHRIST 59 


of the four gospels is of this revealing ministry. 
It is not all revelation in the sense of giving 
information first in each case. It is inspired 
revelation, giving exact truth, just so much, and 
no more, as would be and is the sufficient gospel 
record for all times and all peoples. Some 
devout souls call the Acts of the Apostles the 
“ Acts of the Holy Spirit.”” The intimation is 
justified in this, that much is added to our 
knowledge of Jesus Christ by the works of the 
Spirit herein recorded and His work in giving 
the record. 

The epistles further reveal Christ and all 
things by Him, in Him, and for Him. Any of 
them may be studied with great advantage from 
this point of view. Take the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, and we may well remark how poor 
the church would be without it. The title of 
the last book of the sacred canon is its own 
testimony—“ The Revelation of Jesus Christ.” 

Reading all this in the meaning of the words 
of our Lord, we have His provision for these 
writings and His sanction of them beforehand. 
This is answer to all who seek to be rid of the 
doctrines and counsels and prophecies of the 
Acts, the epistles, and the Revelation on the false 
plea that the gospels alone are our standards. 
The gospels are true, but they give us the reve- 


60 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


lation of Christ only as preparing redemption 
and going to the Father with His perfect work. 
The associate and consequent Scriptures reveal 
by the Spirit both this redemption and the 
Redeemer. 

The many theological treatises and the ac- 
cumulation of devout Christian learning and 
literature along all lines of investigation, the 
vast range and comprehension of personal medi- 
tation and worship, the inwrought Christ of 
Christian lives and the outward manifestation 
of it in “living epistles, known and read of all 
men ’’—these all and more, in their uncounted, 
incidental lessons, show how great is the work, 
how wide the field of operation, outlined by 
Christ here. High as heaven, vast as eternity, 
blessed as the precious Christ, beyond all com- 
prehension yet given to the pure in heart in 
their vision of Christ, complete and minute, 
detailed and in outline, a part for every devout 
soul, as much as that soul can receive, enough 
for all eternity, we shall be ever seeing more 
fully Christ revealed by the Holy Spirit. 


CHAPTER X 
SEEING THE UNSEEN SAVIOUR 


ONLy the Holy Ghost can enable us to do 
this. It is not the same as the act of faith by 
which Moses “endured as seeing Him who is 
invisible.” It is not the vision of the mystic. 
It is, in proportion to its holiness of consecration 
and sanctification, the vision, spiritual and real, 
of a soul of a child of God. 

To be received in part by reading the Scrip- 
tures, it is not because of a more perfect know- 
ledge of the original languages merely, nor by 
reason of exact learning, though these may be 
helps. It comes rather by learning more about 
Christ in this study of the Scriptures. It is a 
personal, intimate, and transforming acquain- 
tance with the Saviour. It grows by obedience 
to Him and leads to more unquestioning loyalty. 
It is the soul and the secret of growth in grace, 


and “ presses toward the mark for the prize of 
61 


62 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


the high calling of God in Christ Jesus,” and is 
to be fully attained in heaven. 

The books of the Old Testament, the gospels, 
the Acts, the epistles, and the Revelation are 
records concerning Jesus. These are complete 
and sufficient to reveal Him, but many readers 
fail to see Him. He is spiritually seen. A 
devout reader should distrust a mere intellectual 
perception, however clear and pleasing, apart 
from the guidance of the Holy Ghost, sought 
and waited for, and a personal unrest unless 
that guidance is given. Devout scholars and 
writers of the Christian centuries have been 
much used of the Spirit in the interpretation 
of the Scriptures, in the preparation of treatises 
on the teachings of the Scriptures, and in the 
elucidation of difficult questions arising out of 
this study, besides all the minor contributions to 
the unfolding of truths and elaboration of prin- 
ciples, and the application of doctrines and 
commandments to life and duty. Hence the 
ever-increasing commentaries on the whole or 
parts of the Bible. In these the Holy Spirit 
has given helps to see the Saviour. 

Among the many aids in the departments of 
study and classes of composition, as intellectual, 
moral or spiritual, general or personal, we find 
great value in the precious store of devotional 


SEEING THE UNSEEN SAVIOUR 63 


works. The older works, such as ‘‘ The Saint’s 
Everlasting Rest,” “The Imitation of Christ,’ 
and “ Looking unto Jesus,” are very rich, but 
too little read. Later works, such as “ All 
about Jesus” and the works of Miss Havergal, 
especially ‘‘Kept for the Master’s Use,” can 
never supplant the older, though in richness, 
sweetness, and suggestiveness they should make 
part of the daily helps to see Jesus. Their 
name is legion, and their variety sufficient for 
all tastes. 

Take the words, “ declared to be the epistle 
of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, 
but with the Spirit of the living God,” as a 
suggestion of another way of seeing the Saviour 
in the hearts and lives of His people. Here He 
is revealed by the Spirit. True, there are 
blemishes and foibles painfully prominent, but 
behind all these and shining through is the in- 
wrought Christ, and in the grace He gives His 
image appears. Sometimes we do not see this 
with our sin-blinded eyes, but we recall it in the 
memory of the departed. Nevertheless there 
are about us humble, rejoicing, or self-sacrificing 
saints, showing us by the Spirit the unseen 
Saviour. If we do not know any such, it might 
be to our advantage to have our eyes treated 
by the heavenly Physician. He appears resplen- 


64 “ANOTHER COMFORTER.” 


dent in our multitude of missionary heroes. 
They are now in every land. In every clime 
they have ‘‘counted not their lives dear unto 
themselves, that they might win Christ.” If 
we who say “‘ We would see Jesus’ would only 
acquaint ourselves with these in person or in 
biographical records, we might have the vision 
nearer than we think. 

Let us not say we cannot see Jesus. It is 
the work of the Holy Spirit, further, to make 
us able to see Him. We have not only the 
revelation of Him in the written Word and its 
manifold exposition, illustration, and application, 
and in the learning and lives of His saints, but 
also a gracious work of making us able to see 
and disposed to enjoy Jesus so revealed. Such 
seeing is knowing. It is knowing about Jesus 
in His nature, offices, Word, and works. It is 
knowing Him in personal acquaintance, fellow- 
ship, control, and guidance. It has its mounts 
of transfiguration. There are occasional well- 
nigh overmastering shinings of His glory. These 
are rarer than they might be, because we spend 
so little time in’ the secret presence and audience 
of the King and in communion with Him as 
Lord and Saviour. The Comforter, Advocate 
within us for Jesus, pleads with us to turn aside 
oftener into the places called desert, to be alone 


SEEING THE UNSEEN SAVIOUR 65 


with Him. We plead demands of business or 
we yield to worries which ought to bring us to 
Him, and we do not turn aside. Or we are in 
too great haste to return to these and earthly 
trifling cares. The Saviour is waiting, and the 
Spirit yearns to reveal Him. We will not take 
the time for such waiting in places of private 
prayer and meditation and worship as He ap- 
points until the Spirit shall give us such a reve- 
lation of Jesus that we cannot but rejoice. 
When we are wakeful and tossing at night 
upon our beds, not able to sleep, we may have 
an opportunity to call upon the Holy Spirit to 
make precious and clear all we can remember 
from the Scriptures concerning Christ, and we 
may have the opportunities of our lives to see 
Jesus. He may be inviting us to commune 
with Him and to tell Him all that is in our 
hearts. It will then be restful and helpful to 
think of all He has done. There may be, and 
we should seek to have, while sleep separates 
from us the companionship of others, such a 
revelation of the gracious and glorious fullness 
of Christ and of His personal presence as no 
words have ever described, and in vision such 
as we can never make plain to others. For 
the realization of this great possibility we must 
seek to be pure in heart and to ascribe all glory, 


66 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


honor, and majesty to Him, even as we expect 
to do unceasingly when the Holy Spirit shall 
have perfected His work, when we shall be free 
from time and sense limitations, when “ we shall 
be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.” 

Like the pious monk of the middle ages, we 
may seek in meditation and prayer, with self- 
emptying and consecration, to have a vision of 
Christ as a personal religious experience. To 
some it may be given. But the call is to have 
more precious and powerful the vision when we 
have done some self-sacrificing service in His 
name to the poor and needy, the widow and 
orphan. In doing His will we may see His 
face. 


CHAPTER XI 
THE POWER OF THE HOLY GHOST 


In the “ Sunday-school Times” of June 18, 
1892, there is an article on the “ Acts of the 
Apostles”’ by John R. Whitney, whom we sup- 
pose to be a member of the Society of Friends, 
as he writes at their college at Bryn Mawr, Pa. 
He gives an excellent analysis of the book. 
While it does not necessarily exclude other views 
as to the objects of the book, it presents clearly 
a new, simple, and forcible view that it is in- 
tended “to record all that the Holy Ghost began 
to doand teach.”’ In this view the book has three 
parts. The first part presents the power which 
is of a person, the Spirit of God. The second 
part gives the instrument, the Word of God. 
The third part presents the chief agent, a man, 
the apostle to the Gentiles. The writer thus 
summarizes the first part: ‘It is the power of 


the Holy Ghost. In the first eleven chapters 
67 


68 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


this is strikingly and strongly emphasized; so 
much so that the book itself has not inaptly 
been styled the Gospel of the Holy Ghost, so 
wonderfully does it record the fulfilment of the 
great promise of our Lord in John xvi. 7.” The 
early history in the planting and training of the 
church is full of this power. It was the promise 
of the Father and of Christ. In Acts i. 8 it is 
called the power of the Holy Ghost. This was 
not His power which works regeneration. The 
disciples already had been born “ from above.” 
It was not His power which works the sanc- 
tification of those who are being saved. It was 
not His power which the Holy Ghost uses as 
our Comforter or Advocate, or as producing 
His fruits in our hearts and lives, except as 
these are incidental to the main purpose to make 
disciples witnesses for Christ. This is the dis- 
tinction and the limitation of the power, that 
it should make effectual witnesses. All power, 
all kinds and degrees of power, are shown in the 
Bible to be of the Holy Ghost. In the creation 
He wrought in power on both living and dead 
matter. To Samson He gave physical strength. 
He gave to the men and women, for the work of 
preparing material and building the tabernacle, 
skill in varied handicrafts, needlework, and other 
Iinds of work required. Taking the thought 


THE POWER OF THE HOLY GHOST _ 69 


from these few of the many cases in the Old 
Testament, we see that whatever kind or degree 
of power may be necessary to make servants of 
our Lord Jesus Christ efficient witnesses for 
Him is here meant. This department or division 
of the work of the Holy Ghost was introduced 
to this dispensation on the day of Pentecost. 
We are not to fall into the error of supposing 
that, as the Holy Spirit came in this power at 
Pentecost, we are not to pray for this power. 
The Holy Ghost did not come in person for the 
first time at Pentecost. He did not come once 
for all upon disciples for strength and success 
in service. He came upon the disciples waiting 
with one accord,” ‘in supplica- 
tion.”” That this was not once for all is seen 


9 66 


Site pLayer, 


from Acts iv. 31, showing disciples again pray- 
ing, and pentecostal power given, accompanied 
by pentecostal signs, teaching that in every 
emergency and responsibility it is right to pray 
and wait for “the power of the Holy Ghost”’ 
to qualify for duty and to use in service. 

The Holy Ghost not merely gives or is the 
source of power. It is His to exert His power, 
and His power alone is sufficient to qualify and 
use convincing witnesses. As the vicegerent 
of Christ He makes witnesses and uses them 
for Christ, and it is right and necessary to seek 


70 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


from God the Father, for Jesus’ sake, this power 
for service. We may not have a feeling, physi- 
cal or emotional, that we are in this power. 
We should rather not expect a bodily or sense 
perception of its working. Our feeling may 
rather be of weakness, helplessness, or insuf- 
ficiency of ourselves, with a prayer to be pos- 
sessed and used, and a faith to trust God, for 
Christ’s sake, so to use us as to keep us humble 
and to magnify His Word and exalt His Son. 
We rest on the promise, and, using all means 
in our power, know and plead that all must 
be in vain without His power, knowing, and 
trembling to know, that the power is the power 
of the Holy Ghost. 

Taking warning from examples in the Old 
Testament, we need to seek first to be the chil- 
dren of God in regeneration, that we may be 
used as children and not as unregenerate. 


CHAPTER XII 
POWER TO WORK, TO SERVE 


WE ought to say ¢e power for work and 
service, because there is but one power of the 
Holy Ghost working in endless and exhaustless 
variety. This is outlined in Genesisi. 2. It is 
illustrated in manifold manifestation of char- 
acter, life, and works throughout the Old Tes- 
tament. It is promised for New Testament 
times in the first chapter of the Acts. 

We often hear prayer for God’s help offered 
in such a way as to imply the belief that, if God 
would only help us more or less, we could do 
something, possibly some great work. If this 
prayer meant “ Help Thou my unbelief,” asking 
God to give us faith or quicken or enlarge what 
we already have, it would be right. But when 
implying that we do any work or service for 
God of ovrselves, it is wrong. The prayer 


should rather be to God to take us and make 
71 


72 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


us what we ought to be, and to use us in work 
of service. Instead of asking God to help us 
work for Him, let us ask Him to possess us and 
control us and use us and all we have in His 
service. Moreover, instead of asking God to 
give us this power in the sense of putting it 
within our control, we should rather seek to 
have the Holy Ghost take us into the control 
of His power. There is vast difference between 
having this power given us and being taken into 
the service of God in this power. This latter is 
essential self-surrender, on our part, in conse- 
cration. It must be effectual in God’s conse- 
cration upon us. 

One of the most pleasing discoveries in Old 
Testament study has been the extent of the 
work of the Holy Ghost in using God’s servants. 
One of the earliest examples is Joseph. From 
a shepherd’s lad in Canaan, without court ex- 
perience or any such education or training as 
we would think adequate, he became prime 
minister to the sovereign of Egypt. Pharaoh 
was desirous to commend this young man to his 
officers and people. The words he used are 
very like what the queen-mother used concern- 
ing Daniel in recommending him for a similar 
place, centuries later. It is the word of a 
heathen king, but puts Joseph where others are 


POWER TO WORK, TO SERVE 13 


definitely placed by inspiration, These are the 
words: ‘Can we find such a one as this is, a 
man in whom the Spirit of God is?”” By Him 
Joseph was qualified for his high position and 
used in great matters of state. Others we no- 
tice elsewhere. Notice the expression, “Is Saul 
also among the prophets?” and consider how 
he was there. Look at Gideon in his great 
victory with lamps and pitchers and the cry, 
“The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon,” but 
only as the Spirit of the Lord possessed him. 
So Samson had great physical power, and Jeph- 
thah fought and conquered. For the work of 
preparing materials and building the tabernacle 
the Spirit of God qualified and used the master 
workmen and the workers in every part, of wood, 
stone, metals, precious stones, and curtains of 
skins and of needlework. Thus the preparation 
and the power to serve in every kind and degree 
of service to the Lord in the Old Testament are 
by the power of the Holy Ghost. 

In Genesis i. 2, “ And the Spirit of God moved 
upon the face of the waters,” is the truth for 
creation, made evident in later revelation as 
true in His works of providence and redemption. 
The Holy Spirit imparts, fosters, and develops 
life. He brings order out of confusion. He 
holds in order the forces. Through Him is the 


74 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


impartation of life. By Him is the training, 
applying, and using of all life’s forces. In re- 
lation to life in Himself and of that to others, 
He alone works in all power of God. There is 
a glimpse of this in the scientific claim of the 
correlation of forces. Natural phenomena are 
thus traceable, not to a physical law merely, 
but rather to the third person in the Trinity, 
who established and maintains these laws. In 
life, all use of life and its application, the refer- 
ence must be ever to the Spirit of God. 

We wish this power to work, to serve. We 
are concerned about our responsibilities. The 
mother is burdened in a desire to do her duty 
to her children. There are household duties. 
The teacher, with his class in secular or sacred 
things, has a desire to succeed. So on and 
on, in personal and professional, in private and 
public, in individual and in joint responsibilities 
we are saying, “‘ Who is sufficient for these 
things?’” What power may we have? In 
consecrated lives we may have power for the 
asking. It will not possess us for our glory 
or for our selfish advantage or pleasure. We 
should seek this only to the extent of our respon- 
sibilities and duties. This is the power of the 
Holy Ghost, not for us to command or use, but 
to use us as well pleasing to God in His service. 


CHAPTER XIII 
PENTECOSTAL POWER 


AFTER the ascension of Christ the disciples 
continued to meet daily in Jerusalem. They 
were united in prayer and supplication. “ When 
the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were 
all with one accord in one place.’”’ In prayer, 
waiting and looking for the promised power, 
they heard, not a rushing, mighty wind, but a 
sound like as of that; and the sound filled the 
house. They saw, not fire, for it did not burn, 
but something like fire, which divided into 
shapes of tongues and rested on the heads of 
the disciples. These disciples ‘‘ were filled with 
the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other 
tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” 
This was pentecostal power. At the feast of 
the Passover, where Christ our Passover was 
the true Lamb of sacrifice, the first sheaf of the 


ripening harvest was offered before the Lord. 
75 


m76 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


Fifty days thereafter two loaves of bread were 
offered as token of the gathered grain. So 
Christ, the first-fruits of them that slept, arose 
on the day of the offering of the first-fruits, and 
at Pentecost the Holy Ghost was given as the 
token of the fullness of harvest; for by Him is 
the fullness of Christ, and by Him the bride, 
the church, which is the fullness of Him that 
filleth all in all, shall be gathered in to Christ. 
Joseph Cook has said suitably to this thought, 
“The influences of the Holy Spirit are Christ’s 
continued life.” 

This is the dispensation of the Spirit. He had 
wrought occasionally in Old Testament times. 
He had exerted His power before the day of 
Pentecost. On that day He came in the full- 
ness of His power, in the completeness of His 
manifold ministry, in the permanence of His 
presence, and in His part of the work of re- 
demption in the world, in the church, and in 
the person of each believer whose body is a 
temple of the Holy Ghost. Every soul con- 
vinced of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment 
is a proof of the power of the Spirit. He is here 
to comfort believers, to sanctify saints, to guide 
disciples into all truth. He is hiding Himself, 
exalting Christ. He is taking of the things of 
Jesus and showing them to His humble followers, 


PENTECOSTAL POWER T7 


Every right thought, every noble purpose, every 
true aspiration, every holy desire, every high 
resolve, is His gracious bestowal. He “ helpeth 
our infirmities.” He “maketh intercession 
for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” 
As Jesus is Advocate at the throne of grace, 
the Holy Spirit is Advocate at the altar of our 
hearts, making our pleadings, our consecration, 
and our worship perfect, right, and true. He 
makes the heart of every child of God His 
abode, and the body of each His temple. Hence 
the exhortations, ‘ Grieve not the Holy Spirit” 
and ‘‘Quench not the Spirit.” All this, and 
more, is the manifold ministry of the Holy 
Spirit. And this fails to exhaust and does not 
define comprehensively the pentecostal power 
of the Holy Ghost. 

The promise of our ascending Lord was that 
the disciples should be witnesses unto Him in 
the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon 
them. This began to be fulfilled on the day of 
Pentecost, when the disciples were filled with 
the Holy Ghost and spoke with other tongues. 
It was continued in every need and responsi- 
bility like that of the fourth chapter of the Acts. 
Then the disciples spoke with boldness. In 
other conditions they manifested joyful resigna- 
tion and triumph in trial and persecution, when 


78 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


they humbly yet gladly “ counted it all joy that 
they were found worthy to suffer for the name 
of the Lord Jesus.” Thus they stood before 
councils and kings and bore testimony which 
their hearers could not resist, and then the Word 
of God on their lips and in their lives grew 
mightily and prevailed. 

Pentecostal power is the manifold ministry 
which abides in this dispensation to take and 
apply the redemption of Christ, and to be “ an- 
other Comforter’ after and to reveal and glorify 
Christ. Every Christian may now have and 
should seek the measure of this manifold min- 
istry and that special direction and control and 
guidance of it which his responsibility to testify, 
his gifts to administer, or his duty to serve may 
require. The duties and gifts are the measure 
of responsibility in such opportunities as God 
gives in the authority of Christ, our living Head 
and interceding Lord; and the ability to do 
our duty in the use of these gifts is of the Holy 
Ghost. ‘All these worketh that selfsame 
Spirit,” giving to every man “ to profit withal.” 
Let us rejoice that the almighty Spirit is come 
and abides to make every Christian a witness 
for Christ where and as he is. 

The Comforter came on the day of Pentecost 
with just that miracle and ministry needed at 


PENTECOSTAL POWER 79 


the time and for the responsibility and oppor- 
tunity of the hour. He came while the disciples 
were of one accord in prayer and supplication. 
Jesus foretold this and placed a condition for 
after generations in the words “ to them that ask 
Him.”” This calls for united prayer. There 
has been a blessing every year on the church 
at home and abroad in observing the week of 
prayer. Whenever the people of God do come 
together in prayer to seek the power of the 
Holy Ghost, He has come. The disposition to 
come together should be ascribed to Him. The 
church should always be seeking and looking 
for any evidence of His power or readiness to 
bestow a blessing. 

This power is not emotional merely. It is not 
the promoter of mere intellectual pleasure or 
insight in reading God’s Word. That is a de- 
lusion and a snare. It is the fallacy of the 
so-called higher criticism. With or without 
conscious intellectual clearness, pleasure, or 
profit in studying or teaching the truth, we 
must seek and wait for the power of the Holy 
Ghost. 


CHAPTER XIV 
SOURCE OF STRENGTH 


IN seeking success in personal and united, 
organized service in the cause of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, we are tempted and prone to make our 
plans and to expect results from a secular or | 
worldly point of view. Because of the dangers 
in this, it is well for us to betake ourselves to 
private prayer and to respond to calls for special 
seasons of prayer. The week of prayer makes 
such a call. In a recent recurrence of this sea- 
son the closing service had for its subject “ The 
Promised Outpouring.” The basis text is in 
the second chapter of Joel. Whether that pro- 
phecy has yet, been fulfilled in all its meaning 
and preciousness,—and I think it has not,—it 
does not concern me now to seek. It had ful- 
filment on the day of Pentecost. That was the 
coming of the Holy Ghost, spoken of as an out- 


pouring in many places. He is come to apply 
80 


SOURCE OF STRENGTH 81 


the redemption wrought by our Lord Jesus 
Christ for His people. He is our source of 
strength. This appears from another prophecy. 
Zechariah the prophet, with Haggai, was en- 
couraging the people of Judah concerning the 
rebuilding of the temple. The work of rebuild- 
ing had ceased for a time. The prophet would 
arouse the people. He gives that guiding word, 
“Not by might, nor by power, but by My 
Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.” He would set 
forward the rebuilding of the material temple. 
The Holy Spirit is the source of strength for 
the labors and burdens necessary. How much 
more for the spiritual temple! 

We need the power of the Holy Ghost to 
do rightly and successfully what we call secular 
work. He qualifies to do wisely and well what- 
ever it is our duty to doin business, profession, 
trade, or labor. He brings these in subordina- 
tion to the claims and authority of our Lord 
Jesus Christ. He will use us in all for the ad- 
vancement of the cause of Christ. In doing, 
He blesses us temporally and spiritually, in and 
by means of our temporal engagements and 
occupations. We should humbly and gladly 
declare our full persuasion of this and should re- 
joice to see a growing recognition of this truth. 

We hear the call to work for Christ. The 


82 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


work is often perplexing and difficult, and there 
are serious hindrances. There are temptations 
to use means and methods that are worldly. 
We sometimes appeal to the world to help on 
its own terms. Occasionally we become worldly 
in appealing to the world. Instead of this we 
should honor the Holy Ghost as our source of 
strength, not the might or power of the world, 
which is essentially the power of Satan. This 
world belongs to our Lord by right of creation 
and redemption, and ought to be under His 
control. But Satan claims and seeks to hold 
this world. Its maxims and means of Satan’s 
devising, in the carnal wisdom and fleshly in- 
terests and selfish contentions of our fallen and 
unregenerate natures, are not the proper prin- 
ciples, nor are they the suitable and sufficient 
forces with which to do spiritual work. 

In its responsibilities and for its duties the 
church of Christ is not dependent on human 
patronage or authority. When the world un- 
dertakes any great work it seeks the sympathy 
of wealth and the codperation of men in high 
places. The indorsement of men in authority 
is eagerly sought. It should not be so with the 
church, though it often is. The saying is that 
if people of wealth can be secured, if persons 
of influence and social standing can be gained, 


SOURCE OF STRENGTH 83 


there will be success. Let us beware. If such 
come to Christ, and, renouncing all self-impor- 
tance and self-sufficiency, will enter the school 
of Christ, waiting to learn of Him, we may 
welcome them to service for Him. But they 
are not to be sought as valuable because of 
worldly importance. On the contrary, the 
church has never been so true to her Lord, has 
never prospered so really, has never done so 
effectually her true work of bearing witness 
for Christ, as when suffering the opposition of 
princes and rulers. The smiles of Satan, the 
patronage of princes, the good graces of the 
great, have rather robbed the church of spir- 
ituality and strength. The secularizing spirit 
under Constantine did more for Satan than all 
the storms of persecution the church has ever 
known. There is great need now to return to 
the ways pointed out by the prophets Zechariah 
and Haggai. There is great need to exalt and 
honor Christ and to wait and plead for His 
Spirit as source of strength. 

The church is not dependent on armaments 
of human force; she is not dependent on armies 
or navies. However much our nation thinks it 
necessary to increase naval strength, or however 
European nations may think standing armies 
essential to peace or power, these are not re- 


84 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


quired by the church. ‘The weapons of our 
warfare are not carnal, but mighty through 
God.” Armies and navies may terrify into 
silent submission, but can never secure personal 
loyalty and devotion to our King. They may 
make hypocrites, but can never give the genuine 
spirit of Christianity. 


CHAPTER XV 
SEEMING STRENGTH 


For the work of the church and of each in- 
dividual Christian there must be such strength 
as to make success sure. We were, in a pre- 
ceding study, showing that the source of 
strength is not in the many means which the 
world holds sufficient and suitable to do its 
work. Such are sources, not of real, but only 
of seeming strength. Even for worldly ends 
they are not real or adequate sources of 
strength. They are not original sources, but 
only agents of advantage, it may be, or posses- 
sions helpful, or powers limited, in the hands of 
the superior and real Source behind and above 
them all. Dependence on these and resort to 
them can only partially, at best, secure desired 
results, even in temporal things. Be it ours to 
seek real, permanent, and beneficial results. 


We would build for eternity, not for a mere 
85 


86 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


present show or advantage, or an apparent vic- 
tory, or a transient good. Any present good 
we may hope to secure should be a part of some 
larger good, and an earnest of that larger good 
we are to seek. We often lose sight of this and 
resort to expedients very specious, but delusive, 
because they modify or diminish our devotion 
to eternal principles and tempt us to explain 
away, if we do not deny, plain teachings of 
God’s Word. We accept, if we do not propose, 
reason and the voice of a majority as standards 
of faith, rather than faith in God and the au- 
thority of His Word. 

This is only seeming, not real, strength. Men 
do seem to succeed by means of certain forces 
or factors in their organizations and labors. If 
any dare doubt the propriety of the use of 
such means, if any urge objection against the 
methods, if any question the soundness of the 
measures, the prompt reply is, ‘ There is noth- 
ing succeeds like success.” That sounds well; 
it seems fine. But the offset is here: the suc- 
cess may be at the sacrifice of honor and truth; 
it may be in utter disregard of wisdom and 
justice; it may be for to-day, but not for to- 
morrow. The church sees the world resorting 
to policy in councils of state, in boards of trade, 
in methods of business, in lines of labor. It 


SEEMING STRENGTH 87 


hears loudly proclaimed such half-truths as the 
famous adage, ‘“‘ Honesty is the best policy.” 
It is freely said that this carnal policy of the 
so-called wisdom of unregenerate men brings 
success. It is resorted to in the courts of 
princes and in the cabinets of nations, and the 
church is tempted to resort to it. It sometimes 
yields a temporary advantage, but there is no 
high attainment of spirituality and piety and 
the permanent power of likeness to Christ and 
conformity to the laws of His kingdom, which 
alone can hold sway over the world. The throne 
of Antichrist rests on this foundation of man’s 
wisdom and the success of human counsels. 
Seeing the value of wealth, the importance of 
learning, and the power of eloquence in the 
world, Christians are often tempted to think 
that eloquence, learning, and riches are neces- 
sary to success in the service of Christ. We do 
not depreciate these. We long to see the day 
when they will be parts of full consecration to 
serve our Master with all we are and have. But 
we know they are not essential to true triumph. 
Even when consecrated they are not to be 
trusted in themselves. They have their place 
and use as subordinate means. The Scriptures 
warn us against the use of money and trusting 
in uncertain riches. God hath chosen foolish 


88 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


things to confound the wise, and weak things 
to confound the mighty. Our Lord chose plain 
men for disciples and earliest apostles. Even 
when He would use the learning of Paul, He 
first took away self-trust and made the apostle 
to the Gentiles see himself the weakest and least 
worthy of all, and all his apparent advantages 
only good with the blessing of God, and teach 
the weakness and insufficiency of the best human 
means for spiritual service and success. Apollos 
the eloquent was chief speaker when worship 
was offered Paul and him. Yet two plain folk, 
Aquila and Priscilla, promoters of household 
religion and noted for personal piety in private 
life, are made teachers to set right the errors 
into which too ready utterance will so often 
plunge the eloquent. The danger of speaking 
hastily and without full preparation and com- 
plete information is remedied by thoughtful 
tent-makers. Moses was not eloquent, Aaron 
was; yet Moses was leader and lawgiver, and 
Aaron was fit only to follow and obey and apply. 
Natural gifts and worldly possessions should 
not be despised, but they are dangerous, and 
the church is not dependent on them for suc- 
cess. The best work for Christ is not done by 
them, but very often against them or in spite 
of them. 


ae 


SEEMING STRENGTH 89 


The church often craves or trusts in the ad- 
vantages of material progress. The advances 
in knowledge of physical forces, the triumphs of 
applied science, the surprises and blessings of 
invention and discovery, are claimed as means 
to and promises of early and easy victory over 
all opposition. These are the products, not the 
producers, of great things from God and great 
things for Him. These material blessings are 
the fruit of the tree that is planted by the river 
of waters, and not the seed of a coming growth. 
They increase the comfort and multiply the 
means of further material progress, but they are 
not the sure means of success nor the necessary 
conditions of the highest efficiency in the ser- 
vice of Christ; and they may be making weak 
and cowardly those who would be strong by 
hardships. 

The church of Christ in the cause of right, in 
the mercy and might of redemption, in its proper 
work and office of bearing witness for Christ, 
and in its labor to win this world to Christ, has 
one means of certain success. The truth alone 
must conquer, whether of the revealed Word as 
the sword of the Spirit, or the living Word as 
the great gift and revelation of the Spirit, or 
both of these as essentially and vitally wrought 
by the Spirit in the character, life, and labors 


90 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


of the Christian. Instead of human plans and 
worldly expediency, the church must seek from 
the Spirit a simple, sincere, and sure instruction 
in the recorded truth of Scripture. It must 
wield that truth as the sword of the Spirit, 
keeping it bright by constant use, and being 
skilled by much practice. It must stop and stay 
there, and only there, where the truth teaches, 
and go only according to that truth, no matter 
what man’s wisdom teaches. 


CHAPTER XVI 
STRENGTH 


SPIRITUAL strength. ‘Strong in the Lord, 
and in the power of His might.” “ Strength- 
ened with might by His Spirit in the inner 


man.” ‘According to His glorious power, 
unto all patience and long-suffering with joy- 
fulness.” ‘‘That ye may be able to stand 


against the wiles of the devil.’ That we may 
“ fight the good fight of faith.”” All this “in the 
Lord, and in the power of His might.” This is 
preparation and qualification for service in the 
gospel and kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. — 
The world does not think so, and the church, so 
far as it 1s worldly, does not accept this. The 
worldly church says, ‘‘We must have money, 
patronage, and well-laid plans.” It is all a sad, 
spiritless, shorn strength that saysso. Strength, 
whether of the soul seeking sanctification and 


service, or of the servant seeking substantial 
91 


92 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


and permanent advancement of the Master’s 
cause, comes of abiding in Christ and the power 
of the Holy Ghost coming upon the servant as 
a Christian, or of the free and independent and 
sovereign working of the Holy Spirit as He wills, 
on any whom the Lord will use. 

In addition to the sources of strength we have 
mentioned in which the church is tempted to 
trust is one toa degree good and helpful. This 
is of equipments of buildings and furniture, and 
organization of societies and agencies to unify 
and direct labor. To protect the persons and 
preserve the health of worshipers, or to aid in 
promoting worship, and to secure and administer 
wisely the gifts and benefactions, these are so 
far good. But they may mislead or even hinder. 
Instead of using them for good results, we may 
seek them as ends good in themselves. They 
do engender pride and promote the extravagant 
rivalry that does harm sometimes. But that is 
not the present thought, to warn against the 
temptation to believe that the church must and 
will succeed because of its fine plans and fur- 
nished places of worship and of work, or be- 
cause of its thorough and drilled organization. 
It would be unfair to say that the church has 
too much organization; but between less beau- 
tiful and comfortable buildings and less organi- 


wale une” 


i % 

: 
‘ 
i 
Vs 
3 

; 


STRENGTH 93 


zation and a possible opposite in the power of 
the Holy Ghost, there can be no hesitation to” 
choose the places and the agencies which the 
Spirit will use. 

The Spirit of God selects the instruments He 
will use ordinarily in the authority and call of 
the spiritual church organized according to the 
Seriptures. But if the church be unspiritual 
and worldly, the choice often is, to the rebuke 
of the church, independent of its organization. 
If the church trusts in anything other than the 
Spirit of God, the ministering power of the 
Lord, the Spirit will forsake her in spite of 
wealth and patronage, policy and learning, 
material advantages or perfect equipment and 
organization. The Spirit chose apostles and 
prophets, pastors and teachers, evangelists and 
workers. He bestows gifts for service, “‘ divid- 
ing to every man severally as He will.” ‘“‘ Now 
there are diversities of gifts, but the same 
Spirit. . . . But the manifestation of the Spirit 
is given to every man to profit withal.”” Thus 
the Spirit selects His instruments. Dr. H. Clay 
Trumbull wrote in comment on the words of 
Zechariah, ‘‘ Not by might, nor by power, but 
by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts,” the 
following ringing sentences: “It is hard for 
Christians to accept this as a practical truth in 


94 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


ordinary religious activities. They will think 
that a church is stronger for having wealthy 
members; that fifty rich men and women—with 
the average spirituality of the rich—are worth 
more just there for ‘the support of the gospel’ 
and the extension of Christ’s kingdom than one 
plain man and one poor woman, full of the Holy 
Ghost, praying and working in that field. They 
cannot but feel that costly buildings, eloquent 
preaching, fine music, and a large congregation 
have a good deal to do with church efficiency. 
Good rooms and improved machinery are sup- 
posed by some excellent people to be really 
essential to a first-class Sunday-school. And, 
at all events, the normal class and the teachers’ 
meeting and the best lesson helps are counted 
no unimportant sources of power. But while 
the Holy Spirit can and does make good use 
of all such things in their place, they are in 
themselves of no might, of no power, for the 
Spirit’s work. Unless they are used by the 
Spirit, they amount to nothing for Christ’s cause. 
No Bible study, no Sunday-school teaching, no 
preaching, or praying, or praising, or giving, 
are of any account, except as they are made 
effective of the Holy Spirit.” 

We measure means too much by their size, 
things too often by their bigness. In church 


igen alte t 


STRENGTH 95 


work we count success in numbers and reckon 
results in dollars and cents. We weigh in the 
scales of business, and not in the balances of 
the sanctuary. The true standard is in char- 
acter, in spirituality, in humility. In these 
balances we have real success many times where, 
judged by false standards, we have seemed to 
fail. Strength to trust, to labor, and to wait 
will never fail. 


CHAPTER XVII 
THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT 


“ Now there are diversities of gifts, but the 
same Spirit”? (1 Cor. xii. 4). So Paul, and in 
other places, and Peter also. ‘‘ Having then 
cifts differing according to the grace that is 
given to us.” ‘‘ But unto every one of us is 
given grace according to the measure of the gift 
of Christ.”” ‘As every man hath received the 
gift, evew so minister the same.”’ 

This is different from the enduement of 
power which was promised and waited for as 
part of the blessing of the Holy Ghost at Pen- 
tecost, not made a permanent possession, but 
to remain with consecration and holiness of life, 
or to be repeated for each responsibility or 
opportunity to bear witness for Christ, or ob- 
ligation or occasion to serve Him. This is not 
the work of the Spirit in regeneration and its 


operations, sanctification and its graces, conse- 
96 


Le ee a 


(HE GII SS OL LHE SPIRIT; 97 


cration and its fruits, or enduement of power 
and its effects. 

These gifts of the Spirit cannot be confined 
to the times of the apostles, which, some think, 
also bound the days of miracles. If the refer- 
ences to these were only in the twelfth chapter 
of First Corinthians there might be some ground 
to assert this limit. But the teaching is found 
in the books of Romans, Ephesians, Colossians, 
and First Peter, not counting here the allusions 
to these gifts in other books, and has such weight 
as to compel the conclusion that these gifts, min- 
istered in the age of the apostles, are not limited 
to that age. 

These gifts are particular and individual. 
They are to every Christian, and with grace 
according to the measure of the gift of Christ. 
In this appears the relation of the Spirit to 
Christ, that the gifts are from Christ, ministered 
by the Holy Ghost. They are the manifesta- 
tion of the Spirit, an evidencing and clear dis- 
play of His power. They constitute, that is, 
they establish, form, and compose, the inherent 
faculty or specific talent for the use of which, 
as a child of God, the Lord Jesus holds each 
one accountable, and which He appeals to each 
to use in His service. They warrant the asser- 
tion that every Christian has some qualification 


98 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


to serve, some talent to be invested, given by 
the Spirit “to profit withal.” These both de- 
mand of every Christian a diligent use of the 
gift bestowed, and encourage each to a full 
measure of faithfulness in knowing that abun- 
dant and varied gifts are bestowed for every 
duty and every responsibility. It is only for 
each one to ask for guidance and grace to use 
the gift. How far these gifts are innate and 
anticipatory, as called natural, we may not 
know. But this is sure, that every child of 
God has a gift, and some may have several gifts, 
and their bestowal and efficiency are alike of 
the Spirit. 

In these are to be found the only safe scrip- 
tural recognition and classification of specialists 
in experience and example, children of God 
eminent and prominent and successful along 
single lines, and illustrious and mighty in par- 
ticular phases of work, or distinguished in spirit- 
ual leadership, in the history of the church. 

Herein we have refuge from fanatical reli- 
gionists claiming that every Christian may and 
should have in equal possession and in personal 
experience and power, as a grace or an attain- 
ment of the spiritual life, what some have pre- 
eminently as gifts. Hereby we shall escape 
the difficulty, with some a great fear, of allowing 


LITE GALT SOLS PH ESL IRS LT 99 


and acknowledging manifest workings of these 
special gifts, lest they warrant presumption in 
others. Herein we have room and right for the © 
exercise and use of every gift, “decently and 
in order,” for ‘‘ the spirits of the prophets are 
subject to the prophets,”’ and exhortations to all 
to stir up the gift that is in them, not merely as 
in the case of the ordained evangelist, nor of 
necessity limited to the laying on of hands, but 
certainly a gift of the Spirit. 

Special gifts, making their possessors eminent, 
have their explanation here. We may boldly 
say that such men as George Miiller have the 
gift of faith and prayer for the needy and 
desolate; men like J. Hudson Taylor have the 
gift of faith for support and supply of all tem- 
poral wants, in venturing upon God’s work 
without any visible means of securing what they 
need to go out into “the regions beyond.” 
Their gift is to trust and go. To some the gift 
of faith and prayer for bodily healing is be- 
stowed. In this way we shall find men and 
women with gifts, differing according to the 
grace that is given them, for some special ser- 
vice or testimony. Some of these may work 
as rebukes of those who fail in regular methods, 
for they do deeds of daring, and bear heavy 
burdens, and suffer much, still bringing the 


100 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


helpless to Christ, and crying after Christ, and 
taking Christ to the needy, in irregular or un- 
conventional methods, and by means not ap- 
pointed by the doctors of the law. The gifts 
are not to be decried, and the works are not to 
be despised, because “they follow not us.” 
“ Notwithstanding every way the gospel is 
preached.” Irregulars may be more regular 
than regulars, if the latter follow only the letter, 
and the former be led by the Spirit. These 
irregulars are not necessarily right. They are 
not thereby justified in self-assertiveness. They 
will prove the possession of gifts by humility 
and patience. They will not assert that all 
who work in a regular way are wrong. The 
regular way is normally the right way, and 
most are called to exercise their gifts in an 
orderly manner and under wholesome restraints. 
The exceptions are called to prove the rule, not 
to destroy it. The gifts of the Spirit are to 
make servants of all to the Lord Christ, so that 
the many may serve in the regular way, and 
the few may have place even in irregular ways. 
Whether with the gifts of faith or healing or 
giving or ruling, or any other, “all these work- 
eth that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing 
to every man severally as He will.” 

Closing the catalogue of gifts in First Corin- 


THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT 101 


thians, the apostle urges all to desire earnestly 
the best gifts. Without discrediting that desire, 
he shows the more excellent way of charity, 
or love, without which gifts may be of value 
for service, but will not avail for holiness and 
happiness. By these gifts are fitness for service 
and call to office, with reason for deep humility 
in any ability to serve the Lord Christ. Every 
Christian needs to inquire diligently, not what 
would be pleasant or desirable from a worldly 
point of view, but what gift of God may make 
useful and successful in service. 

The exhortation of the apostle, “‘ Quench not 
the Spirit,’ as it is associated with the other, 
“ Despise not prophesyings,”’ has an application 
here, and teaches, not, as frequently said, that 
the sinner can do this in resisting the Spirit, 
but that Christians may in not using the gifts 
of the Spirit. It does not refer to the loss of 
eternal life, but the neglect or abuse of gifts 
and the depreciation of the Spirit’s work. Here 
is an explanation of so much coldness or dead- 
ness in the church and so great barrenness of 
Christian living. Ambitious to be or to do 
what the gift bestowed does not warrant, and 
unwilling to do what the gift warrants and 
qualifies to do, or indolent or indifferent in 
opportunities to use the gift to serve, many a 


102 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


Christian has neglected the gift or abused it, 
and has done despite to the Spirit of grace, 
until the gift has become a judge and proved 
the guilt of disobedience to the command, 
“Quench not the Spirit.” 

If any find a difficulty in 1 Corinthians xiii. 
13, supposing that to limit gifts to apostolic 
times, the solution may be found in xii. 31, 
where we are told to covet earnestly the best 
gifts. Then the twelfth runs over to the thir- 
teenth chapter as a more excellent way, not to 
supersede, but to supplement and crown. Faith, 
hope, and love abide, not as successors to or 
substitutes for the gifts, but as graces that adorn 
and enrich. 

If any ask the difference between graces and 
gifts, it is here. Gifts are qualifications or 
talents for use in service. Graces are the ele- 
ments of spiritual texture, and the attractive 
manifestations of personal religious experience, 
which commend to others the excellences of 
holy living. By graces and fruits the influence 
of the Holy Spirit may affect others. It requires 
the power of the Holy Ghost to make gifts 
effective. 


CHAPTER XVIII 
THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT 


THE work of the Holy Spirit in this dispensa- 
tion is as varied and comprehensive as the needs 
in applying the work of Jesus. This somewhat 
distinguishes the present from that of the old 
dispensation of prophecy and promise. This is 
not limited to nor exhausted by the beginning 
at Pentecost. Its application in the life of the 
Christian produces the graces and fruits of the 
Spirit. In Galatians v. 22 the apostle contrasts 
the fruit of the Spirit with the works of the 
flesh. The word “ fruit’ is in the singular 
number. The question whether ‘love, joy, 
peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, 
faith, meekness, temperance,’’ are the fruit, or 
the fruit is love and the others are love ex- 
pressing itself in varieties, is not easily answered. 
Dr. Donald Fraser, in his“‘ Synoptical Lectures,” 


says: “Men often speak of the fruits of the 
103 


104 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


Spirit, but the apostle is careful to say fruit— 
one holy fruit, or result, comprising many vir- 
tues. Love is the juice of the fruit, sweet to 
God and man; joy, its beautiful bloom; peace, 
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, 
form its mellow softness; faith is its consistence 
and also forms its characteristic and incompara- 
ble flavor; temperance the rind of the fruit, 
binding it together, keeping it fresh, and pre- 
serving its good qualities from waste.” This 
beautiful presentation of the apostle’s truth 
under the figure of ripe fruit enables us to 
perceive more clearly that love is the product 
of the Spirit in the heart of the Christian, out 
of which and with which the virtues are pro- 
duced by the same Spirit in the work of sanc- 
tification and comfort wrought in the believer. 

These virtues are named in order as excel- 
lences of the fruit of the Spirit. He dwells in 
every believer. He is working the sanctifica- 
tion of each. He produces and manifests the 
fruit. The believer codperates with the Spirit 
and is used by Him, with all necessary means, 
in the ripening, enriching, and improvement of 
this fruit. The believer needs to take care that 
the fruit is not dwarfed or blighted in its growth. 
This is working out his salvation with fear and 
trembling. This does not deny or destroy the 


THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT 105 


usual understanding of this passage in Philip- 
pians that the believer should do good, that the 
life of the believer should be full of good works. 
It is only stating an inner meaning. “The 
apostle has here in view mainly the attainment 
of the mind that was in Christ Jesus, the putting 
off of the old man and the putting on of the 
new. It is the pursuit, in fact, of practical 
godliness, such a spirit and demeanor as adorn 
the gospel.” 

“The fruit of the Spirit is love.” We may 
have arich portion of the King’s bounty if only 
we will realize that this is the fruit of the Spirit 
alone, and that to have this is to have in pos- 
session, if not in expression, all the rest. The 
modern Christian seeking to abound in good 
works, by the power of the Holy Spirit, should 
seek first to cultivate “‘ the fruit of the Spirit.” 
We would do well to stir up our own hearts and 
the hearts of others to ask whether we know 
anything of the fruit of the Spirit as a precious 
personal possession and manifest in our lives. 

In this is a call to submit our wills to the 
authority of Christ, and ourselves to be led by 
the Spirit, yielding ourselves to His gracious 
influence, following His wise guidance, seeking 
instruction in the Word He has inspired, and 
cultivating communion wiih Him, that He may 


106 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


produce in us and by us the graces and fruits 
of the Spirit. 

Hope is not named in the series of virtues in 
Galatians. In the fifth and fifteenth chapters 
of Romans it is associated with peace and long- 
suffering. All these are the graces of the fruit 
of the Spirit in sanctification, and in some such 
order are to be expected in the character and 
conduct of the consecrated Christian. 

These are to be distinguished from the gifts 
of the Spirit. The gifts are in order to service 
and “given to every man to profit withal.” 
The responsibility of the Christian is to use the 
gift. He will be held responsible for neglecting 
or refusing to do so. The fruit comes of sanc- 
tification. It is to be distinguished from the 
signs and wonders in the early church approving 
apostolic authority and ministry. The gifts 
now, while not to show the authority, are often 
such as to remind the faithless of God’s faith- 
fulness and to assure all of the sufficiency of 
His power and grace. All means of grace unto 
sanctification are also means to cultivate the 
fruit of the Spirit, flowering in good hope and 
perfect in love. 


CHAPTER ‘XIX 
SEVERAL BENEFITS 


“ The Spirit of God dwellethin you.” This is 
an application of the truth that the bodies of 
believers are permanent abodes of the Holy 
Ghost. It should stir Christians to treat their 
bodies as holy, in dedication and consecration, 
like the tabernacle and the temple. It is not 
enough to say that the Holy Spirit makes be- 
lievers jointly or severally His temple, as the 
place where He manifests His power or exerts 
His influence merely. The truth is larger, and 
at the same time more specific; that this is no 
passing visit, no sudden and transient illumina- 
tion, no power fitfully given or often withdrawn, 
but this: ‘I will dwell in them, and walk in 
them; and I will be their God, and they shall 
be My people.” This is the great gift of the 
New Covenant. Saints should seek to care for 


their bodies as His temples, that they may 
107 


108 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


glorify Him in them as they are strengthened 
by Him and commune with Him. 

“Led by the Spirit.’ Here the thought is 
not of being led as by the hand in a dark night 
or difficult way, though these are experiences © 
of the Christian ; nor of having the way pointed 
out to us by One having thorough knowledge 
of the way, and showing where and what it is, 
though the Holy Spirit as our guide does this. 
The meaning is rather that the Holy Spirit, 
dwelling in saints as sons of God, leads them. 
He leads to the knowledge of God as in Christ 
reconciling the world unto Himself, and as giv- 
ing all the fullness of the Godhead bodily in 
Christ Jesus. He leads to a knowledge and 
sense of emptiness and helplessness of the soul, 
and sinfulness of the whole nature, without 
Christ, and to refuge and completeness in Him. 
He leads to a knowledge of the heart, how de- 
ceitful and sinful it is. He leads toa knowledge 
of sin, as against God only, and dangerous, and 
corrupting always. He leads to repentance, 
faith in Jesus Christ, and love to God and man. 
He leads to communion with God and fellow- 
ship with saints. He leads into the delights of 
worship and transports of spiritual experiences, 
through the confidences of God, the discoveries 
of new and deeper and more precious meanings 


SEVERAL BENEFITS 109 


of His Word, and the riches of His grace. He 
leads into ready obedience to God’s command- 
ments, not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, 
but with newness of heart, with good will doing 
service, as unto God. This leading is not by a 
mere influence, but in the use of ordinances 
and means of grace, in the study of the Scrip- 
tures, in earnest consecration of life, and in con- 
stant prayer. He leads not by mere impulses, 
and yet He uses these to the heart and will 
made responsive to His touch. In the provi- 
dence of God He leads to their right meaning 
and use. In the seeming conflict of duties and 
clashing of undue haste, He calls to wait upon 
Him, that He may lead to know which is right 
and to hold fast to it calmly and perseveringly. 
He leads ever away from ungodliness and ini- 
quity, from vanity and vice, from pride and strife. 
He leads into paths of righteousness. As we 
are led by Him we are the children of God. 
The more we consent to be led, and yield to 
His leading, and rejoice in it, the more worthy 
children we become. 

“Sanctification and good hope.’’ ‘This expres- 
sion is not found in the Scriptures, but is often 
used in prayer and preaching. It arises out of 
Romans xv. 13, 16, 19. By sanctification is not 
meant growth in holiness, with increase of grace 


110 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


and perseverance therein to the end, though 
these are the work of the Spirit. The meaning 
is of consecration, in which the offering of the 
Gentiles is acceptable to God. This consecra- 
tion is not the priestly act of the ritual ceremony, 
but the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, the con- 
secration of God. In this we are accepted and 
by this we are sanctified. Good hope grows of 
this. It comes of faith in Jesus, the joy of the 
Lord, and the peace of God. Hope is the gift 
of the God of hope and the work of the Spirit. 
It is not enough to have hope or to be hopeful 
in the secular sense. The Holy Spirit makes 
the consecrated Christian to abound in hope— 
the hope of the glory of God. The apostles 
had the seal of the Spirit in labors abundant 
and successful, so that the Gentiles were made 
obedient through mighty signs and wonders, 
and, codrdinately, by the power of the Spirit of 
God. Thus may sanctification and good hope, 
as the consecration of God and the experience 
of the inward working of the Holy Ghost, 
through faith, and in joy and peace unto as- 
surance of hope, make saints mighty in Christ 
Jesus. 

“Soy in the Holy Ghost.” ‘The kingdom of 
God is within you.” It is “ not meat and drink, 
but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy 


SEVERAL BENEFITS ger ta 


Ghost.”’ This reign of Christ within the heart, 
not as His outward visible kingdom, yields joy. 
Elsewhere we have “joy in God through our 
Lord Jesus Christ” as experience, and “ Rejoice 
in the Lord” as a command. Here we have 
joy in the Holy Ghost as a prime factor in the 
kingdom of heaven. We joy in God as the 
almighty Lord and our God and Father, and 
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
We rejoice in the Lord Jesus as Lord and our 
Lord, and in our submission and obedience to 
Him, and His blessed dominion over us and 
“propriety in us.” Joy in the Holy Ghost is 
satisfaction in His person and power, our ex- 
perience of His presence, our delight in the 
dispositions and desires and affections inwrought 
by Him, our confident and assured hope of 
eternal life sealed to us by His indwelling, our 
foretaste of the bliss of heaven in present ex- 
periences, our comfort in sorrow, our increasing 
revelations and knowledge of our Saviour, and 
occasional transports of bliss when we can say 
humbly and yet boldly, and thankfully, “I am 
my Lord’s, and He is mine.” 


CHAPTER XX 
THE LOVE OF THE SPIRIT 


IF we are asked whether we love the Holy 
Spirit, or He loves us, we may find it more dif- 
ficult to make reply than if asked whether we 
love Jesus, or He loves us. We have gone too 
little beyond a very literal acceptance and very 
meager meaning of the phrase in the Apostles’ 
Creed, ‘‘I believe in the Holy Ghost.” We 
do believe there is a Holy Ghost. We call Him 
the Comforter. We refer the work of regenera- 
tion and sanctification to Him. We may have 
occasionally sought His power for service. We 
desire His indwelling presence, though we may 
hesitate to welcome His searching work. But 
who has thought of Him as loving the sinner as 
God the Father and God the Son love with 
love divine, unspeakable? This love gives new 
preciousness to the words of our Lord, “It is 


expedient for you that I go away.” God the 
tee B 


THE LOVES ORSLAE SPIRIT, 113 


Father loved us with an amazing love to send 
His Son to die for us. God the Son loved us 
with a gracious, condescending love to take our 
nature and to “bear our sins in His own body 
on the tree.” God the Holy Ghost loved us 
with a compassionate, absorbing love to come 
among us, to be with us, to live in us, to take 
control of us, to comfort and to guide us, in our 
lost, helpless, and shameful condition. Yet we 
do not welcome and honor Him and give Him 
the place He should have in our hearts. 

Weare enabled by Him to pray for His power 
in the name of our gracious Lord, but we do 
not realize His love, and hold communion with 
Him, and love Him for His presence and power. 
In praying, we rush on in a torrent of peti- 
tions because of our many supposed wants, and 
do not stop in sacred silence to know the mind 
of the Spirit and the real needs His love would 
disclose. In this hurrying, busy world we wait 
too little for the “still, small voice.” And we 
have failed to exult in the Spirit in our thoughts 
and to love Him in our hearts. Possibly this is 
the reason why we have received so little of the 
fullness of His blessed fellowship. 

In private, family, social, and public prayer 
we are too much in a hurry. There may not be 
too much petition, but is there enough thanks- 


114 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


giving, meditation, and communion? This last 
is so important that in the apostolic benediction 
it is the Spirit’s distinctive blessing sought. If 
we want power for outward duty and active life, 
we must be strengthened as with might by His 
Spirit in the inner man. 

We do not undertake to define or describe 
the love of the Spirit as to its nature and dis- 
position toward the other persons of the God- 
head, or toward man. That would propose 
problems perplexing and lead us into theory, 
whereas our present purpose is practical. God 
the Father is love. God the Son is love. God 
the Spirit is love. The triune God is love. 
We may know the love of the Spirit as we know 
and love God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 
There is a distinction in the personal love of 
each to us, according to, and manifested and 
ministered in, their offices in redemption. We 
dwell upon the love of God the Father and that 
of God the Son. Do we dwell enough on the 
thought of the love of God the Holy Ghost? 
Yet He loves us equally with the Father and 
the Son, and is doing His work of love, as real 
as theirs and as divine. 

The apostolic benediction distinguishes the 
love of God, the grace of Christ, and the com- 
munion of the Holy Ghost. That may make 


LH LOVE OP THE SPIRIT. 115 


us measurably unmindful of the truth we are 
studying. This is the dispensation of the Spirit. 
Love is the motive power of His work. Wher- 
ever His work is mentioned or seen this love is 
implied. The work of our Teacher, Sanctifier, 
and Comforter springs from His love, as neces- 
sary to the complete redemption of the sinner 
as that of the Father and the Son. 

The love of the Father sought and the love 
of the Son wrought the plan and conditions of 
redemption. Christ’s work of atonement was 
finished. His sacrifice was all-sufficient. Noth- 
ing could be added to its merits. Still sinners 
did not acknowledge its merits and meaning 
and would not accept the benefits. The Spirit 
must explain and apply them. The love of the 
Spirit brought Him to make known and make 
effectual the love of Christ. The saving benefit 
of Christ’s love depends upon the applying work 
of the Spirit’s love, as the love of God the 
Father did upon the atoning love of Christ. 
This love was the motive. Concerning this Dr. 
Owen wrote: “The principle or foundation of 
all the Spirit’s actings for our consolation is His 
infinite love and condescension. For this He 
comes to dwell not only in this wicked world, 
but in the heart of each redeemed sinner, cleans- 
ing the heart and sanctifying the whole nature.” 


116 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


He is the Spirit of holiness, delighting in 
holiness and abhorring sin. If we can conceive 
of the saintliest servant of Christ going into 
places of infamy, intemperance, and physical 
defilement, living among sinners to save them, 
we may have some idea of the love of the 
Spirit in making His abode in the sinner’s heart. 
Fle knows how depraved and corrupt the heart 
is. He knows how He will be grieved and how 
His dwelling-place will be neglected. It is 
wonderful that He does come and deal with 
the sinner at all. And He abides and waits so 
patiently and works so graciously. He comes 
to the chief of sinners. This is made possible 
by the love of God and the righteousness of 
Christ, and is of the Spirit’s love for the Father 
and the Son. He is not grieved away, though 
often grieved. He is not quenched in this 
loving work, though quenched in His power 
for service. He waits and works until love has 
inwrought Christ and conquered sin, and the 
sinner is made a saint, and the saint is glori- 
fied in Christ. The love of the Spirit is seen in 
His wounds, inflicted as a faithful Friend. It 
is seen in making sin appear to us exceeding 
sinful in all its blackness within us, and in re- 
buking us for allowing it or indulging in it. He 
will not stop short of teaching us to hate it and 


a 


DHE LOVIE OF DHE SLIRT TL: ii G7 


of ridding us of it. It is an evidence of His 
loving work that we become more sensitive to 
the presence of sin, and more burdened by its 
power over us, and more anxious to be freed 
from it. Then He testifies of the righteousness 
of Christ and our sufficiency in it, and of judg- 
ment and our safety there through Christ Jesus. 
In the work of sanctification the first-fruit of 
the Spirit is love. 

Take these words of another: ‘“ Surely the 
Spirit of God is the Comforter divinely sent, 
and is Himself divine love and an ever-present 
Christ. But for the love of God the Father in 
sending Christ, the world had perished without 
help or hope. But for the love of Christ in 
giving His life to provide a righteousness for 
us, we had remained under condemnation and 
dead in trespasses and in sins. And but for the 
same infinite love of the Spirit, we would have 
perished in our sin and hardness and unbelief.”’ 


CHAPTER XXI 
GRIEVING THE SPIRIT 


THE Holy Ghost is a seal. As letters were 
sealed to their destination for privacy, and docu- 
ments to make them authentic and authoritative 
to convey property and to make a safe title, so 
the Holy Spirit seals the believer. He is also 
the earnest and foretaste of future felicity. God 
the Father sealed Christ and seals the believer 
as Hisandin Him. The gift of the Holy Spirit 
is the seal (compare Eph. iv. 30 with John vi. 
23). The Holy Spirit is the seal unto the day 
of redemption. 

His presence is immediate. He dwells in 
each believer, and the body is His temple. The 
companionship thereby established is very in- 
timate; not like ours with our friends and in 
our infirmities, but as God’s. In this nearness 
we may grieve the Holy Spirit of God. We 


may wound or offend Him or give Him pain. 
118 


GRIEVING THE SPIRIT 119 


For Jesus’ sake He is our nearest Friend, and 
we may grieve His heart of love. 

He seeks our sanctification. He is accom- 
plishing it. He will increase it. But, oh, how 
slowly, with many of us, in our indifference or 
hindrances, with our many falls and much de- 
pression and gloom! Seeking our sanctification, 
the Spirit is grieved by any such dispositions in 
us or habits of our lives as heathen have. By 
speaking or living a lie; by telling untruth, 
misleading, or deceiving; by sinning in anger; 
by stealing—taking what is not our own, with- 
out equivalent in affection or friendship or 
honest labor, whether without the knowledge 
of the rightful owner or by violence or fraud 
with his knowledge; by conversation corrupt, 
or not good to the use of edifying, or unneces- 
sary ; by giving way to the temptations of Satan ; 
by bitterness and wrath, clamor and evil-speaking 
and malice, we may grieve the Holy Spirit. 

In our bodies, or in our abuse of them as His 
temple, we may grieve Him. By not controlling 
and subduing lustful passions, which degrade 
and destroy; by so indulging appetites and 
gratifying desires as to render our bodies unfit 
for their best use and service and so depreciat- 
ing or deteriorating their high possibilities and 
powers, as by the use of narcotics, alcoholic 


120 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


stimulants, or other nerve excitants, or luxurious 
living; by worthless reading or harmful studies 
or evil thoughts; by indulging in evil or licen- 
tious imaginings, plans, or acts, in any way 
yielding our powers or possessions to Satan, 
self, or sin, we grieve the Holy Spirit. 

By neglecting means of grace; by failure to 
us€ means and opportunities to know the mind 
of the Spirit, or to receive His instruction and 
guidance; by neglecting to study the Scriptures 
or any disregard of their high claims and solemn 
demands upon our daily and patient reading and 
earnest practice of them; by omitting to attend 
the service of the sanctuary, and the family 
worship, and social prayer and praise services, 
and the place and time of regular, frequent, at 
least daily, private prayer and personal religious 
meditation and communion ; by refusing, or 
lazily indifferent, or failing through neglect, to 
serve the Lord Christ, whose authority the 
Spirit has come to assert and maintain, and in 
whose name He speaks: by being unmindful of 
the claims of the gospel to time, talents, and 
means, and putting the preaching and propaga- 
tion of the gospel in any inferior place ; by losing 
any opportunity to be kind, tender-hearted, and 
forgiving, the Christian may “grieve the Holy 
Spirit of God.” 


oe 


GRIEVING THE SPIRIT 121 


No wonder the church is cold and Christians 
are so often comfortless. We would not treat 
our earthly friends so. Alas, alas, that we 
should ever grzeve our heavenly Friend! 


A PRAYER 


Lord God, the Holy Ghost, 
The Father and the Son 

Have sent Thee forth, and are, with Thee, 
The eternal Three in One. 


Come, take the things of Christ, 
And show them to His own; 

Their Saviour make them own as Lord 
And know as they are known. 


Dwell in each humble heart; 
Thy gracious gifts bestow; 

Enable each to use the gift, 
And by its using grow. 


Comfort the mourning ones, 
The wandering footsteps guide, 
And bid the doubting, troubled soul 
In Thy great love abide. 


Stir dull and hardened hearts 
With visions of Thy love, 

Presenting love to God in Christ 
In light from heaven above. 


To those who cannot pray 
Give groanings unexpressed ; 
Thy intercessions for them place, 
In Christ’s great name addressed. 


122 


“ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


Give forth within the church 
The servants Thou dost choose, 

To preach and teach and do Thy work, 
That Christ may nothing lose. 


Convince the world of sin; 
Of righteousness reprove; 

From judgment turn to faith in Christ, 
With longings and with love. 


Exalt the risen Christ; 
Show forth His gracious name; 
Make all His own complete in Him, 
With love to Him aflame. 


More holy every day, 
Strengthened with might to serve, 
Take and make all who love the Lord 
His own without reserve. 


Shedding the love of God, 
Revealing Christ in saints, 

Accept their humble love to Thee; 
Repress all base complaints. 


Forbid that we should grieve 
Thy love so great and true; 


Make us what Thou wouldst have us be 


In all we are and do. 


To Thee we yield our hearts, 
To worship and adore, 

With God the Father and the Son, 
One God forevermore. Amen. 


eee 


Oh 


CONCLUSION 


JESUS said (Matt. xxviii. 18, 19), “ All power 
is given unto me. . . . Go ye therefore.” A 
few days later He said to the same disciples 
(Acts i. 8), “ Ye shall receive the power of the 
Holy Ghost coming upon you.” This declara- 
tionand promise supplement eachtheother. The 
power given to Jesus is authority. The power 
of the Holy Ghost is energy, power to operate, 
strength of expression. Because He laid down 
His life for His sheep, the Father loved Jesus. 
Because He loved Him, He gave Him all au- 
thority. He is Head over all to the church. 
He is now exalted to the right hand of God, 
seated on His Father’s throne. All principalities 
and powers are subject to Him. Whatsoever 
is done in His name is by His authority. Now 
the Holy Spirit is given in the name of Jesus. 
The ministration of the Spirit is in His own 


power. The New Testament carefully preserves 
123 


124 “ANOTHER COMFORTER”? 


this distinction in ascribing authority to Christ 
Jesus and power to the Holy Ghost. The power 
of the Spirit is ministered in the authority of 
Jesus. The manifold ministry of this power is 
comprehensively expressed in the phrases “‘com- 
munion of the Holy Ghost” and “ ministration 
of the Spirit.” 

There is a limited ministration of the Holy 
Spirit called enduement or bestowment or bap- 
tism of the Spirit. By whatever name, we must 
recognize this promise of God in Christ to 
make mighty and effectual in the service of 
Christ. We must be painfully impressed with 
the want or need of this in many professing 
Christians. 

The conditions to the bestowment of this 
power can be learned at the feet of Jesus, in 
humble acknowledgment of utter unworthiness 
to receive it and inability to exercise it. These 
conditions include the devout recognition of | 
Jesus as Lord, and confession of Him as our 
Lord, and entire surrender to His supreme 
authority. This will mean the consecration of 
ourselves entirely and unreservedly to His ser- 
vice. It will be always saying, or praying for 
grace to say, “Not my will, but Thine, be 
done.” Deeper spiritual experience must cor- 
respond with the teaching of Galatians ii. 20. 


CONCLUSION 125 


rs 


There must be the appropriation of Christ in 
crucifixion with Him and in participation in His 
death, burial, and resurrection, as presented in 
Romans vi. This is not by any mode of an 
outward ordinance, but, being that unto which 
we are baptized, it is the apprehension of that 
for which we are apprehended in Christ Jesus. 
“ Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth 
in me,” 

This will come with the surrender to the Holy 
Spirit to work in the name of Jesus. He is the 
vicegerent of Christ. This is His hour and 
power to which we have come and by which 
all the authority of Christ is to be administered. 
Personal life must be lived in the communion 
of the Holy Ghost. All business must be 
conducted by Him. All church concerns and 
interests must be in His ministration. 

Fully surrendered to Jesus Christ as Lord, 
entirely consecrated to His service, denying self 
and waiting in silence of soul, the power of the 
Holy Ghost will come. Then there will be 
discoveries of sin, disclosures of weakness, dis- 
plays of past failures in self-trust, with new 
surprises of God’s greatness and love, of the 
riches of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
and of the all-sufficiency of the communion of 


the Holy Ghost. The love of God will be shed 


126 “ANOTHER COMFORTER” 


abroad. Jesus will be revealed and exalted. 
The Holy Ghost will work triumphantly. The 
cause of Christ will prosper. Souls will be 
saved. 

Peter and John of the disciples had this tes- 
timony: “ They took knowledge of them, that 
they had been with Jesus” (Acts iv. 13). The 
others had been with Jesus as teacher, com- 
panion, and guide. They all had His example. 
But these two were with Him, as the others 
were not, in the trial, death, and resurrection. 
Until then their lives had been carnal, selfish. 
They lost that self-life in being crucified with 
Christ and rising with Him. He died for their 
sins. They died unto their sins. They appro- 
priated what was wrought for them. Then came 
Pentecost and the power of the Holy Ghost. 

All our lives and all our labors are failures. 
There is a point from which they may be made 
mighty. That point is the surrender of self and 
trust. According to its necessities this is “ the 
faith of God,” “the faith of the Son of God,”’ 
the faith of “ the fruit of the Spirit.” 

Our Lord Jesus Christ is enthroned and in- 
terceding, and ‘‘by Him all things consist.” 
The Holy Ghost is in the world in the name of 
Christ. As we surrender-to_Christ we welcome 


CONCLUSION 127 


the Holy Ghost, and in His communion we are 
possessed of His power for the service of Christ. 
In every need and responsibility we must wait 
for that Power whose manifold ministry makes 
Him in this dispensation “ another Comforter.” 


By Rev. Andrew Murray. 
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